Laboratory investigation of constitutive property scaling behavior

Because many constitutive rock properties must be measured at one scale but applied at another, scaling behavior is an issue facing many applied disciplines, including the petroleum industry. A research program has been established to investigate and a quantify scaling behavior through systematic physical experimentation, with the aim of developing and testing models that describe scaling behavior in a quantitative manner. Scaling of constitutive rock properties is investigated through physical experimentation involving the collection of gas-permeability data measured over a range of discrete scales. The approach is to systematically isolate those factors that influence property scaling and investigate their relative contributions to overall scaling behavior. Two blocks of rock, each exhibiting differing heterogeneity structure. have recently been examined. The two samples were found to yield different scaling behavior, as exhibited by changes in the distribution functions and semi-variograms. Simple models have been fit to the measured scaling behavior that are of similar functional form but of different magnitude