Effect of X-ray Computed Tomography Imaging Parameters on Petrophysical Properties

A high-resolution 3D X-ray microscope (Model: Zeiss Xradia 620 Versa) located at Auburn University was utilized to capture the 3D images for this study. 

To study the effect of image resolution, a set of images were collected at resolutions of 1.25, 2.5, 5, and 15 µm for Torrey Buff and Bentheimer Sandstone samples. While the 1.25, 2.5, and 5 µm images were captured using the 4X objective, the image with 15 µm resolution was collected using the 0.4X objective. Another set of images was collected with varying bin sizes (1, 2, and 4) which also resulted in resolutions of 1.25, 2.5, and 5 µm, respectively.

The instrument also offers the option to choose the number of projections. This parameter sets up how many 2D X-ray projections the instrument will capture while rotating the sample 360° to reconstruct the 3D tomograph. In this work, images were captured with 400, 800, 1600, 3200, and 4500 projections for both samples.