Estimation of Capillary Pressure Curves from Centrifuge Measurementes Using Inverse Methods

Abstract

The centrifuge method is a standard technique for drainage and imbibition capillary-pressure curve estimation of porous media. Several methods have been proposed for the estimation of capillary-pressure curves from centrifuge experiments. These methods may be classified as direct or inverse according to how they solve the centrifuge saturation equation. In this work, we evaluate direct and inverse capillary-pressure curve estimation methods of comparable flexibility on synthetic generated datasets. We present a theoretical justification for the applicability of parameterized inverse estimation methods, derive the analytical solution of the saturation equation of a known and frequently used capillary-pressure parameterization and discuss potential benefits of inverse methods with respect to model simplicity, ease of data usage and uncertainty analysis.