Summary of “Permeability of granitic drill core tested by steady flow and transient flow gas permeameter probes: improvements to methods and ap-plications”

Abstract

This article is a summary of the paper published in “Engineering Geology” (Scibek et al., 2025). In this study, we reviewed common practices for conducting gas probe-type permeameter pressure-decay tests and steady-state gas flow tests on unconfined rock samples. The development of this permeameter tool took over 5 years, and it was related to testing new rapid test methods on drill cores from faulted and undeformed granites at the former Mizunami research site (JNC, 2003) in Gifu Prefecture, with the kind support of JAEA staff and the provision of drill cores from the Shobasama drill site on the Tsukiyoshi Fault (JNC, 2005). The paper in the Engineering Geology journal presents a description of the methods, with examples from a wide selection of granitic drill core samples of the Toki Granite (Mizunami site), with additional low-permeability samples of cut Inada Granite (Ibaraki Prefecture), and highly permeable artificial porous ceramic materials.