Laboratory Details

Delft Petrophysics Lab

The X-ray Imaging Facility at Delft University of Technology (TUD) has been instrumental over the past ten years for applied earth science and civil engineering research in the Netherlands using X-ray computed tomography (CT). The facility is widely used within the Civil Engineering and Geoscience faculty for a large variety of earth science-, archaeology-, asphalt- and wood-related research. In addition, we host visitors and collaborators from other faculties within TUD, other universities within the Netherlands and Europe, as well as industrial partners. A Siemens macro-CT scanner scans large dm-sized cores at a maximum of a half-mm resolution in a matter of seconds. It is frequently used for in-situ fluid flow experimentation and imaging. A Phoenix Nanotom micro-CT scanner is used for imaging 3D samples at a micrometre resolution. We use open-source software and the commercial Avizo 3D processing software to visualise and quantify 3D micro-CT datasets. Since 2018, the Dutch NWO Roadmap project EPOS-NL (https://bit.ly/2S0H5Y5) is linked directly to the X-ray imaging facility, which is part of a distributed facility called MINT. We facilitate 3D imaging and scanning of rock samples across all scales via the MINT facility, in cooperation with Utrecht University. With our CT scanners, we offer state of the art 3D imaging facilities complemented by a decade of research and technical support expertise. We also offer our in-house expertise for sample preparation to prepare rock cores for X-ray imaging.

Processing and acquisition software available at the facility:

• Phoenix reconstruction software
• Avizo 3D analysis software
• Matlab/Python routines