An Experimental Investigation into the Effective Permeability of Porous Media whose Matrices are Composed of Obstacles of Different Sizes

Abstract

A comprehensive experimental investigation has been conducted to determine the effective permeability of fluid saturated porous media consisting of small and large spherical particles. Small and large particles were mixed uniformly at a certain mixture ratio so as to form a vertical porous column. Water was drawn from a reservoir to flow through the vertical tube filled with particles of different sizes. The resulting pressure drops between the inlet and outlet sections of the test column were measured at various flow rates to determine the effective permeability. The results were compared with the present theoretical model generalized on the basis of the analysis reported by Liu, Sano and Nakayama for fractured porous media. It has been confirmed that the present mathematical model agrees very well with the experimental data and thus can be used to estimate the permeability of porous media consisting of obstacles of different sizes.

Permeability of Dual-Structured Porous Media

“…Sano et al, [4] measured the effective permeability of fluid saturated porous media consisting of small and large (2), (8) and (10).…”

“…They focused on an equivalent continuum model and proposed an analytical expression to determine the effective permeability. Sano et al, [4] extended Liu et al 's [2] work to calculate the effective permeability of a porous medium with impermeable blocks of different sizes. Khajeh and Maijer [5] developed an analytical expression based on a solution to the Brinkman-Darcy equation for the permeability of solidifying hypoeutectic aluminum alloys by considering the microstructure to be a dual-structured porous medium.…”

A Three-Dimensional Numerical Model for Determining the Pressure Drops in Porous Media Consisting of Obstacles of Different Sizes

“…Sano et al, [3] extended their analytical expression to estimate the pressure drop in the flow in a bed packed with particles of different sizes. They conducted a series of the experiments using a column of particles of different sizes.…”

Permeability of dual structured hypoeutectic aluminum alloys

“…They focused on an equivalent continuum model and proposed a mathematical relation for determining the effective permeability. Sano et al [26] extended the work of Liu et al [24] to calculate the effective permeability of a porous medium with obstacles of different sizes. Both studies showed excellent agreement between the permeabilities calculated with the developed mathematical expressions and experimental measurements.…”