Pore scale study of permeability and tortuosity for flow through particulate media using lattice Boltzmann method. (English) Zbl 1274.76312

Ghassemi, Ali; Pak, Ali

Int. J. Numer. Anal. Methods Geomech. 35, No. 8, 886-901 (2011).

Summary: In this paper, Lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) has been used to study the effects of permeability and tortuosity on flow through saturated particulate media and identify the relationships between permeability and tortuosity with other parameters such as particles diameter, grain specific surface, and porosity. LBM is a simple kinematic model that can incorporate the essential physics of microscopic and mesoscopic processes involved in flow through granular soils.
The obtained results indicate that the 2D LB model, due to its inherent theoretical advantages, is capable of demonstrating that the porosity and specific surface are the most influential parameters in determining the intrinsic permeability of granular media. The obtained results show that particles’ size diameter has a two-fold effect on the coefficient of permeability: one is through specific surface and the other is by tortuosity factor. Numerical study also reveals that tortuosity of granular soils decreases almost linearly with increasing the porosity.

MSC:

76S05	Flows in porous media; filtration; seepage
76M28	Particle methods and lattice-gas methods
74F10	Fluid-solid interactions (including aero- and hydro-elasticity, porosity, etc.)
86A05	Hydrology, hydrography, oceanography

Keywords:

lattice Boltzmann method; permeability; tortuosity; discrete element method

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