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    Evaluation of single-sided nuclear magnetic resonance technology for usage in geosciences
    (Bristol : IOP Publ. Ltd., 2022) Costabel, Stephan; Hiller, Thomas; Dlugosch, Raphael; Kruschwitz, Sabine; Müller-Petke, Mike
    Because of its mobility and ability to investigate exposed surfaces, single-sided (SiS) nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) technology enables new application fields in geosciences. To test and assess its corresponding potential, we compare longitudinal (T 1) and transverse (T 2) data measured by SiS NMR with those of conventional geoscientific laboratory NMR. We use reference sandstone samples covering a broad range of pore sizes. Our study demonstrates that the lower signal-to-noise ratio of SiS NMR data generally tends to slightly overestimated widths of relaxation time distributions and consequently pore size distributions. While SiS and conventional NMR produce very similar T 1 relaxation data, unbiased SiS NMR results for T 2 measurements can only be expected for fine material, i.e. clayey or silty sediments and soils with main relaxation times below 0.05s . This limit is given by the diffusion relaxation rate due to the gradient in the primary magnetic field associated with the SiS NMR. Above that limit, i.e. for coarse material, the relaxation data is strongly attenuated. If considering the diffusion relaxation time of 0.2 s in the numerical data inversion process, the information content >0.2s is blurred over a range larger than that of conventional NMR. However, our results show that principle range and magnitudes of the relaxation time distributions are reconstructed to some extent. Regarding these findings, SiS NMR can be helpful to solve geoscientific issues, e.g. to assess the hydro-mechanical properties of the walls of underground facilities or to provide local soil moisture data sets for calibrating indirect remote techniques on the regional scale. The greatest opportunity provided by the SiS NMR technology is the acquisition of profile relaxation data for rocks with significant bedding structures at the μm scale. With this unique feature, SiS NMR can support the understanding and modeling of hydraulic and diffusional anisotropy behavior of sedimentary rocks.
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    Hydraulic characterisation of iron-oxide-coated sand and gravel based on nuclear magnetic resonance relaxation mode analyses
    (Munich : EGU, 2018) Costabel, Stephan; Weidner, Christoph; Müller-Petke, Mike; Houben, Georg
    The capability of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) relaxometry to characterise hydraulic properties of iron-oxide-coated sand and gravel was evaluated in a laboratory study. Past studies have shown that the presence of paramagnetic iron oxides and large pores in coarse sand and gravel disturbs the otherwise linear relationship between relaxation time and pore size. Consequently, the commonly applied empirical approaches fail when deriving hydraulic quantities from NMR parameters. Recent research demonstrates that higher relaxation modes must be taken into account to relate the size of a large pore to its NMR relaxation behaviour in the presence of significant paramagnetic impurities at its pore wall. We performed NMR relaxation experiments with water-saturated natural and reworked sands and gravels, coated with natural and synthetic ferric oxides (goethite, ferrihydrite), and show that the impact of the higher relaxation modes increases significantly with increasing iron content. Since the investigated materials exhibit narrow pore size distributions, and can thus be described by a virtual bundle of capillaries with identical apparent pore radius, recently presented inversion approaches allow for estimation of a unique solution yielding the apparent capillary radius from the NMR data. We found the NMR-based apparent radii to correspond well to the effective hydraulic radii estimated from the grain size distributions of the samples for the entire range of observed iron contents. Consequently, they can be used to estimate the hydraulic conductivity using the well-known Kozeny–Carman equation without any calibration that is otherwise necessary when predicting hydraulic conductivities from NMR data. Our future research will focus on the development of relaxation time models that consider pore size distributions. Furthermore, we plan to establish a measurement system based on borehole NMR for localising iron clogging and controlling its remediation in the gravel pack of groundwater wells.
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    Enhanced pore space analysis by use of μ-CT, MIP, NMR, and SIP
    (Göttingen : Copernicus Publ., 2018) Zhang, Zeyu; Kruschwitz, Sabine; Weller, Andreas; Halisch, Matthias
    We investigate the pore space of rock samples with respect to different petrophysical parameters using various methods, which provide data on pore size distributions, including micro computed tomography (μ-CT), mercury intrusion porosimetry (MIP), nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), and spectral-induced polarization (SIP). The resulting cumulative distributions of pore volume as a function of pore size are compared. Considering that the methods differ with regard to their limits of resolution, a multiple-length-scale characterization of the pore space is proposed, that is based on a combination of the results from all of these methods. The approach is demonstrated using samples of Bentheimer and Röttbacher sandstone. Additionally, we compare the potential of SIP to provide a pore size distribution with other commonly used methods (MIP, NMR). The limits of resolution of SIP depend on the usable frequency range (between 0.002 and 100 Hz). The methods with similar resolution show a similar behavior of the cumulative pore volume distribution in the overlapping pore size range. We assume that μ-CT and NMR provide the pore body size while MIP and SIP characterize the pore throat size. Our study shows that a good agreement between the pore radius distributions can only be achieved if the curves are adjusted considering the resolution and pore volume in the relevant range of pore radii. The MIP curve with the widest range in resolution should be used as reference.