Improving Numerical Fluid Flow Simulation by Ring Artifact Removal in Micro-CT Images of Porous Media Using Attention Autoencoder–Decoders

IF 2.6 3区工程技术 Q3 ENGINEERING, CHEMICAL

Transport in Porous Media Pub Date : 2025-07-02 DOI:10.1007/s11242-025-02190-4

Mehdi Mahdaviara, Maryam Mousavi, Yousef Rafiei, Amir Raoof, Mohammad Sharifi

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

The emergence of micro-computed tomography has significantly enhanced our ability to examine the morphology of porous materials and the dynamics of fluid flow within pore spaces. However, image-based analyses can be compromised by various artifacts, particularly ring artifacts, which appear as concentric rings in the images. These artifacts can be misinterpreted as part of the pore space, artificially connecting pores and thus influencing numerical simulations. This study examines the influence of ring artifacts on pore network modeling (PNM), direct numerical simulation (DNS), and prominent numerical techniques, and presents a computing approach for their effective mitigation. For this purpose, a dataset was compiled from the literature that includes the images of Fontainebleau, Boise, and Belgian sandstones. Data augmentation was implemented by extracting real ring patterns from Fontainebleau samples and superimposing them onto clean images of the sandstones. Two U-Net autoencoder architectures (base and Attention U-Net) were trained for a regression task aimed at removing ring artifacts while reconstructing the underlying pore morphologies. The Attention U-Net outperformed the base model, achieving a mean squared error of 0.07 (calculated based on the grayscale values between 0 and 255). Visual evaluations confirmed the model’s effectiveness in artifact removal and pore morphology reconstruction. The model was further tested on unseen pore-scale data containing real ring artifacts, which indicated a high performance in removing the artifacts. DNS and PNM were performed on both original (with real rings) and improved 3D samples (200³ voxels) to assess the impact of artifact removal on transport properties. The results revealed that ring artifacts, identified as flow pathways, significantly influence the velocity profiles. While the presence of the artifact had a minimal effect on porosity (a 1.68% error) and the number of pores (1.45% error), it significantly increased the permeability by 34%.

Graphical Abstract

查看原文本刊更多论文

利用注意力自编码器改进多孔介质微ct图像中环形伪影去除的数值流体流动模拟

微型计算机断层扫描的出现大大提高了我们检查多孔材料形态和孔隙空间内流体流动动力学的能力。然而，基于图像的分析可能会受到各种伪影的影响，特别是环状伪影，它们在图像中显示为同心圆。这些人工产物可能被误解为孔隙空间的一部分，人为地连接孔隙，从而影响数值模拟。本研究探讨了环形伪影对孔隙网络建模（PNM）、直接数值模拟（DNS）和重要数值技术的影响，并提出了一种有效缓解它们的计算方法。为此，从文献中编译了一个数据集，其中包括枫丹白露、博伊西和比利时砂岩的图像。通过从枫丹白露样本中提取真实的环状图案，并将其叠加到干净的砂岩图像上，实现了数据增强。两个U-Net自动编码器架构（base和Attention U-Net）被训练用于回归任务，目的是在重建底层孔隙形态的同时去除环状伪像。注意力U-Net优于基本模型，实现了0.07的均方误差（基于0到255之间的灰度值计算）。视觉评价证实了该模型在去除伪影和重建孔隙形态方面的有效性。在包含真实环伪影的未见孔隙尺度数据上对该模型进行了进一步测试，结果表明该模型具有较高的去除伪影的性能。DNS和PNM在原始（真实环）和改进的3D样本（2003体素）上进行，以评估伪影去除对传输特性的影响。结果表明，环形伪影，确定为流动通道，显著影响速度分布。虽然人工制品的存在对孔隙度（误差1.68%）和孔隙数量（误差1.45%）的影响很小，但它显著增加了34%的渗透率。图形抽象

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来源期刊

Transport in Porous Media 工程技术-工程：化工

CiteScore

5.30

自引率

7.40%

发文量

155

审稿时长

4.2 months

期刊介绍： -Publishes original research on physical, chemical, and biological aspects of transport in porous media- Papers on porous media research may originate in various areas of physics, chemistry, biology, natural or materials science, and engineering (chemical, civil, agricultural, petroleum, environmental, electrical, and mechanical engineering)- Emphasizes theory, (numerical) modelling, laboratory work, and non-routine applications- Publishes work of a fundamental nature, of interest to a wide readership, that provides novel insight into porous media processes- Expanded in 2007 from 12 to 15 issues per year. Transport in Porous Media publishes original research on physical and chemical aspects of transport phenomena in rigid and deformable porous media. These phenomena, occurring in single and multiphase flow in porous domains, can be governed by extensive quantities such as mass of a fluid phase, mass of component of a phase, momentum, or energy. Moreover, porous medium deformations can be induced by the transport phenomena, by chemical and electro-chemical activities such as swelling, or by external loading through forces and displacements. These porous media phenomena may be studied by researchers from various areas of physics, chemistry, biology, natural or materials science, and engineering (chemical, civil, agricultural, petroleum, environmental, electrical, and mechanical engineering).