Numerical research on the anisotropic transport of thermal neutron in heterogeneous porous media with micron X-ray computed tomography

The anisotropic transport of thermal neutron in heterogeneous porous media is of great research interests in many fields. In this paper, it is the first time that a new model based on micron X-ray computed tomography (CT) has been proposed to simultaneously consider both the separation of matrix and pore and the distribution of mineral components. We apply the Monte Carlo method to simulate thermal neutrons transporting through the model along different directions, and meanwhile detect those unreacted thermal neutrons by an array detector on the other side of the model. Therefore, the anisotropy of pore structure can be imaged by the amount of received thermal neutrons, due to the difference of rock matrix and pore-filling fluids in the macroscopic reaction cross section (MRCS). The new model has been verified by the consistent between the simulated data and the pore distribution from X-ray CT. The results show that the evaluation of porosity can be affected by the anisotropy of media. Based on the research, a new formula is developed to describe the correlation between the resolution of array detectors and the quality of imaging. The formula can be further used to analyze the critical resolution and the suitable number of thermal neutrons emitted in each simulation. Unconventionally, we find that a higher resolution cannot always lead to a better image.