A new approach to digital generation of spherical void phase porous media microstructures

Abstract

a b s t r a c tThis work describes a novel approach for obtaining digital samples of porous media based on a statistical knowledge of the microstructure of interest. The present formulation introduces a contact law based on bubble physics that is capable of handling interferences among spherical primitives of different diameter placed in a representative elemental volume, while the volume is compressed to yield a target porosity. The result is a statistically accurate mathematical model of a permeable, spherical-void-phase porous material that has the added feature of being spatially periodic in all principal directions. To validate the approach, digital samples of spherical-void-phase carbon foam were generated and discretized for use in hydraulic and thermal Computational Fluid Dynamics simulations. Relevant transport properties were computed from the simulation results, and compared to similar data found in the literature.

Closure of a macroscopic turbulence and non-equilibrium turbulent heat and mass transfer model for a porous media comprised of randomly packed spheres

“…Therefore, we utilize REVs having random arrangements of spheres that characterize a small portion of a much larger packed bed. The approach adopted to create the REVs used the formulation developed by Dyck and Straatman [42], except using a modified contact law [43] that was suitable for spherical particles as opposed to spherical voids. Their approach produces three-dimensional domains of randomly packed spheres using YADE [44], with spatial periodicity maintained in the x, y and z directions.…”

A Multi–Level Approach for Simulation of Storage and Respiration of Produce

“…For macroscopic calculations, the transport equations are volume-averaged and the influence of the detailed shape and packing arrangement are characterized by drag and exchange models, which require closure coefficients. The closure process can be either physically based, which depends on selection of a representative elementary volume (REV) of the porous media [1,2], or empirical in that it depends on experimental verification and sensitivity analysis of closure parameters [3,4].…”

“…Moving away from ordered geometric idealizations, a study undertaken by Soulaine [10] computed the flow and heat transfer in a saturated REV micromodel, which was obtained from a 3D micro-CT image following the procedure described in [11]. Dyck and Straatman [1] developed a model that creates a region of variable-sized spheres randomly arranged to produce a foam structure with a specified pore-size and porosity. This model incorporates YADE (Yet Another Development Engine) [12] and produces geometric models that yield far superior simulated results in terms of pressure drop and convective heat transfer compared to prior work [12].…”

“…The particles may deform or interact together based on kinematics and force analysis. Herein, and similar to the work of Dyck and Straatman [1], it is used to create packing of objects that results in a porous media representative elemental volume. Because of the generic nature of the model by Dyck and Straatman [1], it is also possible to incorporate porosity gradient and shape effects, which makes it an attractive tool for the present study.…”

“…Herein, and similar to the work of Dyck and Straatman [1], it is used to create packing of objects that results in a porous media representative elemental volume. Because of the generic nature of the model by Dyck and Straatman [1], it is also possible to incorporate porosity gradient and shape effects, which makes it an attractive tool for the present study. To this end, the digital geometry generation model developed by Dyck and Straatman [1] is extended herein to generate packing arrangements suitable for produce modelling.…”