Evaluation of representative elementary volume for a vuggy carbonate rock-Part: Porosity, permeability, and dispersivity

The experimental results show that the variance and coefficient of variation decreases with increase in sample size for all investigated properties. Based on the reduction of variation with increased rock sample size a representative volume for measurement is proposed for the studied material. The results also indicate less variation for the porosity-permeability relationship with increased sample volume. It is shown that a single measurement at traditional laboratory scale can lead to erroneous interpretation of a measured property for the vuggy carbonate material. However, multiple measurements at laboratory scale can be used to determine the representative properties.