On the Relationship Between Porosity Variation and Electrical Conductivity for Synthetic and Realistic Core Samples

This paper focuses on investigating the relationship between the variation in the porosity and the effective electrical conductivity of the synthetic samples, reproducing the internal structure of the real geological object. Synthetic samples based on the real sandstone sample with varying porosity were generated and their effective conductivity tensors were computed. The results show that while the average porosity recovery error is relatively low, the pore space topology appears to be less intricate, leading to a lower connectivity factor compared to the reference Berea sandstone sample. This, in turn, affects the anisotropy nature of the effective electrical conductivity in the synthetic samples. The study highlights the importance of considering the pore space connectivity factor when modeling the effective properties of porous media. The findings suggest that even small variations in porosity can lead to significant changes in the effective conductivity, emphasizing the need for accurate representation of pore space topology in simulations.