Spontaneous imbibition is significantly influenced by rock wettability, and it has been extensively studied in core-based experiments and numerical simulations owing to its important role in the development of oil/gas reservoir. Due to the fine pore structure and complex wettability of tight sandstone, an in-depth exploration of the effects of wettability on the pore-scale flow physics during spontaneous imbibition is of great value to complement traditional experimental studies and enhance the understanding of microscopic flow mechanisms during the development of tight oil reservoirs. Based on a X-ray computed tomography scanning experiment and a lattice Boltzmann multiphase model, in this work, we systematically investigate the effects of different hydrophilic strengths on the evolution of the imbibition fronts within the micropores and the degree of nonwetting fluid recovery during spontaneous imbibition of tight sandstone. The results show that the wettability significantly affects the morphological characteristics of the imbibition fronts. Under strong hydrophilic conditions, the wetting fluid preferentially invades the pore corner in the form of angular flow. As the contact angle increases, the hysteresis effect at the main terminal interface decreases, and the two-phase interface becomes regular and compact. Wettability also significantly affects the imbibition rate and the nonwetting fluid recovery degree. The smaller the contact angle, the faster the imbibition rate and the higher the recovery degree of nonwetting fluids during the cocurrent spontaneous imbibition.

Rocks are heterogeneous multiscale porous media: two rock samples with identical bulk properties can vary widely in microstructure. The advent of digital rock technology and modern 3‐D printing provides new opportunities to replicate rocks. However, the inherent trade‐off between imaging resolution and sample size limits the scales over which microstructure and macrostructure can be identified and related to each other. Here, we develop a multiscale digital rock construction strategy by combining X‐ray computed microtomography and focused‐ion beam (FIB)‐scanning electron microscope (SEM) images, and we apply the technique to a tight sandstone. The computed tomography (CT) scanning images characterize macroscale pore structures, while the FIB‐SEM images capture microscale pore textures. The FIB‐SEM images are then coupled to CT images via a template‐matching algorithm and superposition. Bulk properties, including porosity and pore and throat size distribution, can be recovered with this approach. Permeability prediction with a pore network model for the largest connected pore network are 3 orders and 1 order of magnitude greater than the bulk rock measured value using the CT‐only and the SEM‐CT coupled images, respectively.

Based on the basic principle of the porosity method in image segmentation, considering the relationship between the porosity of the rocks and the fractal characteristics of the pore structures, a new improved image segmentation method was proposed, which uses the calculated porosity of the core images as a constraint to obtain the best threshold. The results of comparative analysis show that the porosity method can best segment images theoretically, but the actual segmentation effect is deviated from the real situation. Due to the existence of heterogeneity and isolated pores of cores, the porosity method that takes the experimental porosity of the whole core as the criterion cannot achieve the desired segmentation effect. On the contrary, the new improved method overcomes the shortcomings of the porosity method, and makes a more reasonable binary segmentation for the core grayscale images, which segments images based on the actual porosity of each image by calculated. Moreover, the image segmentation method based on the calculated porosity rather than the measured porosity also greatly saves manpower and material resources, especially for tight rocks.