An axisymmetric diffusion experiment for the determination of diffusion and sorption coefficients of rock samples

► A diffusion test is developed to estimate the anisotropy of sedimentary rocks. ► An analytical model (solutions) is derived for a variety of experimental setups. ► The developed test and analytical solutions are tested against experiments. ► In the experiments, the reliability of the diffusion anisotropy is examined. ► Numerical experiments identify favorable conditions for estimating the anisotropy.