Institut Francais Du Pe'trole

Jean-Claude Marchand

Marc Fleury

Gabriel Ringot

Philippe Poulain

The invention is a process and device for performing successive drainage and imbibition phases of a first electrically-conducting fluid and a second fluid of lower density than the first fluid, in a porous sample (,) by means of a centrifuge. Each sample is placed in a main chamber (,) of an elongate vessel (,) fastened to the end of an arm of the centrifuge, together with a spacer (,) whose volume is so selected that, on the one hand, the interface between the two fluids does not come into contact with the sample in operation and, on the other hand, the volume of chamber (,) remaining free around the sample and the associated spacer is greater than, but preferably close to the pore volume of the sample, so as to maximize the displacement amplitude of the interface for a given variation of the volume of fluid displaced. A capacitive sonde (,) in an auxiliary cavity (,), connected to an outer measuring device, is used for measuring the displacements of the interface. The invention has applications of surveying of rocks taken from an underground reservoir.

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Paris, France

Jean-Claude Marchand