Optimization of CPMG sequences for NMR borehole measurements

Nuklear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) can provide key information such as porosity and permeability for hydrological characterization of geological material. Especially the NMR transverse relaxation time T2 is used to estimate permeability since it reflects a pore-size dependent relaxation process. The measurement sequence (CPMG) usually used consists of several thousands of electromagnetic pulses to densely record the relaxation process. These pulses are equidistantly spaced by a time constant τ. In NMR borehole applications the use of CPMG sequences for measuring the transverse relaxation time T2 is limited due to requirements on energy consumption. It is state of the art to conduct at least two sequences with different echo spacings (τ) for recording fast and slow relaxing processes that correspond to different pore-sizes. For the purpose to reduce the amount of energy used for conducting CPMG sequences and to obtain both, slow and fast, decaying components within one sequence we tested the usage of CPMG sequences with an increasing τ and a decreasing number of pulses. A synthetic study as well as laboratory measurements on samples of glass beads and granulate of different grain size spectra were conducted to evaluate the effects of of an increasing τ spacing, e.g. an enhanced relaxation due to diffusion processes. The results are showing broadened T2 distributions if the number of pulses is decreasing and the mean grain size is increasing, which is mostly an effect of a significantly shortened acquisition time. The shift of T2 distributions to small decay times in dependence of the τ spacing and the mean grain size distribution is observable. We found that it is possible to conduct CPMG sequences with an increased τ spacing. According to the acquisition time and enhanced diffusion the sequence parameters (number of pulses and τmax) has to be chosen carefully. Otherwise the underestimated relaxation time (T2) will lead to misinterpretations.