Quantification of Phase Distributions in Porous Media with High-Resolution Benchtop Micro-CT.

Recent technological advances and steadily increasing computational capabilities led to the development of a new generation of benchtop X-Ray Micro-Computed Tomography (M-CT) systems with maximum resolution and image quality comparable to synchrotron M-CT. The objective of the presented study was to evaluate and optimize the potential of an advanced, high-resolution benchtop M-CT system for quantification of phase distributions in artificial and natural porous media. Effects of metal filters and various acquisition parameters (i.e. total rotation, rotation step, and radiograph frame averaging) on image quality and acquisition time were evaluated. Impacts of sample size and scanning resolution on CT-derived porosities and pore-size distributions are illustrated. Radiograph inversion and advanced three-phase segmentation methods are discussed.