ECH155A – HUMG

TECHNICAL MEMORANDUM

To: Prof. Tonya Kuhl, Senior Engineer

From: Ly Truong Tung Group 5
Date: March 23, 2019
Subject: APPLICATION OF DANCRY‘S LAW TO DETERMINE PERMEABILITY
CC: Dr Pham Trung Kien

Executive Summary:
The concept of permeability is of importance in geology determining the flow characteristics of
hydrocarbons in oil and gas reservoirs, and of groundwater in aquifers. In this experiment, The
coressponding values of each porous media are

Permeability, κ (cm2)
Porous media
Coefficient value Error value
Media C 4.898E-11 1.910E-12

Media D 1.852E-10 1.015E-11

Media E 2.619E-09 2.601E-10

Darcy’s Law is the good method to determine the permeability of porous media.

Introduction and Purpose:

The fluid can be permeated through soild-porous media so determining the permeability of the
material is very important. In this experiment, we can find the permeability by draining water in
column through a porous medium which was in the bottom of column and applying the equation
of Darcy’s Law. We will measure the height of water in the drainning column as a function of
time and make use of data to determine the system permeability.

Theory and Analysis:

κ A (P2−P1 ) Q −κ∗∆ P
We have Darcy’s Law: Q= ⇔ v= = (Eq1)
µ∗L A μ∗L

application of Bernoulli equation: ∆ P=ρ∗g∗∆ h Equation 1 becomes :

 κ∗ρ∗g∗h
v= (Eq2)
μ∗L

−dh −dh κ∗ρ∗g∗h

however we knows : =v (Eq3) . From Eq2 + Eq3 we have : =
dt dt μ∗L

Intergrating both sides we have:

h (t ) t
dh ( t ) −κ∗ρ∗g∗dt h −κ∗ρ∗g
∫
h0 h
=∫
0 μ∗L ( )
⇔ ln
h0
=
μ∗L
∗t (Eq3)

Where:h is height of water h0 is height of water at initial time

t is time κ is permeability of porous media
ρ is density of water g is gravity acceleration
µ is viscosity of water L is thickness of porous media
From Eq.3, the height of the water in the draining column is a function of time. When we did the
experiment, we recorded the data of height of water and the corresponding time.The form of

equation is y=m∗x where y=ln ( hh ) , x=t , slope=m= −κ∗ρ∗g

0 μ∗L
.

−m∗μ∗L
So, κ= (Eq.4)
ρ∗g
Results and Discussion:
Graph of height as a function of time for each porous media shown in Figure 1. The curve of
Media E is the most descent. This proves that media E has the fastest flow rate in 3 media. Media
C has the smallest slope, since it has the slowest flow rate.
 Height and Time
80
70
60
Height(cm)

50 Media C
40 Media D
30 Media E
20
10
0
0 5 10 15 20 25

Time(s)

Figure 1. Graph of height vs. time for each porous media

We have the value of thickness and slope of each curve below. Applying the Eq4 and
Attachment 1, we have the final result of this memo, as shown in Table1 and Table 2

Table 1 : The values of thickness L and slope m of each column

Thickness (L) Slope (m)

Fractional Fractional
Coefficients Error   Coefficients Error  
error error
Value Value Unit Value Unit Value Value Unit Value Unit
C1=0.0368 0.001 cm 2.72 % -1.5283E-03 4.2765E-05 s-1 2.80 %
D1=0.0347 0.001 cm 2.88 % -6.1290E-03 2.8556E-04 s-1 4.66 %
E1=0.0354 0.001 cm 2.82 % -8.4946E-02 8.0868E-03 s-1 9.52 %
Table 2: The values of permeability – κ of each column

κ (cm2)
Fractional
Coefficients Error
error
Value Value Unit Value Unit
C1=4.898E-11 1.910E-12 cm2 3.90 %
D1=1.852E-10 1.015E-11 cm2 5.48 %
E1=2.619E-09 2.601E-10 cm2 9.93 %

Conclusions and Recommendations:

From the result we figure out above, we can see that the error of the permeability is quite large. The
main reason of this is the carelessness of our group in the experiment. My group sometimes take the data
didn’t correct, the flow rate of “E” when we did experiment are very fast, the values of height sometimes
aren’t corresponding to the values of time. Another reason occur in the data processing.

From the result of this experiment, the Darcy’s Law is the good method to determine the permeability of
porous media. The advantages of this method are easy to do experiment, applying to single phase and
one dimensional flow.

References:
1, Exp 1 Darcy Law Handout, from Dr. Tonya Kuhl.
2, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permeability_(electromagnetism)
3, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darcy%27s_law

Attachment 1 : How to calculated permeability κ and error for each porous media.
−m∗μ∗L
Using Equation 4 we have :κ=
ρ∗g
The formula to calculated error of permeability σ κ is:
∂κ 2 ∂κ 2 ∂κ 2 ∂κ 2 ∂κ 2
√( ∂m ) 2
( ) 2
( ) 2
( ) 2
( )
( m ) ∂ µ ( µ ) ∂ L ( L ) ∂ g ( g ) ∂ ρ ( σ ρ)
σ + σ + σ + σ + 2

Because σg = σρ = 0, so:
−μ∗L 2 −m∗L 2 2 −m∗μ 2
⇔ σκ=
√( ρ∗g )(
2
(
σ m) +
ρ∗g )
σµ + (
ρ∗g
( )
σ L )2

In this case, we calculate with data from Media C :

Coefficients Standard Error

Value Value
g 980.000 0
ρ 0.997 0
µ 0.0008509 0
L 0.0368 0.001

Using Regression in Data Analysis in Excel we have σ m=4.2765E-05

So we can find :κ=4.898E-11±1.910E-12

The same way to calculate porous media D and porous media E, we have the result in this experiment :

Permeability, κ (cm2)
Porous media
Coefficient value Error value
Media C 4.898E-11 1.910E-12

Media D 1.852E-10 1.015E-11

Media E 2.619E-09 2.601E-10