TinyPerm II - Portable Hand-Held Air Permeameter

NER’s TinyPerm II is a portable handheld air permeameter used for measurement of rock matrix permeability or effective fracture apertures on outcrops and at the core scale.

The operator presses a rubber nozzle against the specimen and withdraws air from it with a single stroke of a syringe. As air is pulled from the sample, a microcontroller unit simultaneously monitors the syringe volume and the transient vacuum pulse created at the sample surface. Using signal processing algorithms, the micro-controller computes the response function of the sample/instrument system. Key characteristics of this response are displayed on the liquid crystal display (LCD).

Theory shows how the response function is related to permeability and either matrix permeability or effective fracture flow aperture can be determined from the calibration charts and tables provided.