Investigation of Resistivity of Saturated Porous Media with Lattice Boltzmann Method

The lattice Boltzmann method is employed to study the electrical transport properties of saturated porous media. Electrical current flow through the porous media is simulated and the relationship between resistivity index and water saturation is derived. It is found that this kind of relation is not a straight line as described by the Archie equation with the parameter n being a constant in a log--log scale. A new equation is thus developed to formulate this relation with n being a function of porosity and water saturation. The comparisons between the results by lattice Boltzmann and by the laboratory experiments on rock samples demonstrate that this numerical method can provide an alternative way for the expensive laboratory experiments to investigate the electrical transport properties of saturated porous media and can be used to explore micro mechanisms more conveniently.