Relating Tortuosity to Geometrical Characteristics of Porous Media

Abstract:

Tortuosity is an important parameter that has a significant impact on many environmental processes and applications. Flow in porous media, diffusion of gases in complex pore structures and integrity of membranes in water desalination are examples of the application of this micro-scale parameter. The objective of this work was to obtain functional relationships that relate tortuosity to the geometrical and topological of porous media. High resolution 3D images of representative porous media were obtained using synchrotron computed tomography. Algorithms were developed to compute geometrical and topological parameters such as sphericity, angularity, porosity and grain size distribution. Tortuosity factors were computed from tortuous paths derived from 3D medial surface of the void space. The developed models serve as predictive tools to avoid expensive, time-consuming and difficult experiments