[Ahmed T. Reservoir engineering handbook. Elsevier; 2006.

, Honarpour MM, Koederitz F, Herbert A. Relative permeability of petroleum reservoirs. 1986.,

Du Yuqi OB, Dacun L. Literature review on methods to obtain relative permeability data. 2004].

Steady-State techniques of estimating relative permeability are often considered the most reliable
source of relative and the pressure drop is measured, and the subsequent values are used in
Darcy’s Law to calculate the effective permeability of the fluid at that saturation across the core.
[Review of the effect of temperature on oil-water relative permeability in
porous rocks of oil reservoirs - Sajjad Esmaeili, Hemanta Sarma, Thomas Harding, Brij Maini
Honarpour MM, Koederitz F, Herbert A. Relative permeability of petroleum reservoirs. 1986.
Nourmohammad A, Vahidi A, Emadi M, Gerami S. Effect of temperature on two phase oil-water
relative permeabilities. 77th EAGE conference and exhibition
2015. 2015.
Virnovsky G, Skjaeveland S, Surdal J, Ingsoy P. Steady-state relative permeability
measurements corrected for capillary effects. SPE annual technical conference and
exhibition. Society of Petroleum Engineers; 1995.]
This method can cover full saturation range. However, because of the required pressure and
saturation stabilization for each reading, it is very time consuming and expensive. Du Yuqi OB,
Dacun L. Literature review on methods to obtain relative permeability
data. 2004

The unsteady-state technique is a displacement method in which an displacing phase is injected

at constant rate or pressure into the core. The test involves displacing in-situ fluids with a
constant rate or pressure driving fluid. The outlet fluid composition and flow rate is measured
and used in determining the relative permeability. The Buckley-Leverett equation for linear fluid
displacement is the basis for all calculations. The Johnson-Bossler-Naumann (JBN) solution is
used most often for calculating relative permeabilites from unsteady-state displacement tests.
This method is fast, less expensive, widely used, and represent the dynamic reservoir situation.
However, a part of the saturation range not directly accessible, and more complex calculation
procedure in comparison with steady-state method[Du Yuqi OB, Dacun L. Literature review on
methods to obtain relative permeability data. 2004].
Due to an expensive and lengthy process of laboratory experiments compared with simulation
methods, non-experimental approaches have been considered to obtain relative permeability
values recently.
Ramstad et. al. shows that for a simulation steady-state flow, drainage and imbibition relative
permeability curves are in good agreement with available experimental steady-state data. The
calculated unsteady-state relative permeabilities for the drainage is fundamentally different from
the steady-state situation. They indicate that for non-wetting phase of unsteady-state flow,
relative permeability for drainage is over-predicted compared to the steady-state data. (Relative
Permeability Calculations from Two-Phase Flow Simulations Directly on Digital Images of
Porous Rocks
DOI 10.1007/s11242-011-9877-8)