Transport properties of heterogeneous materials. Combining computerised X-ray micro-tomography and direct numerical simulations

Feasibility of a method for finding flow permeability of porous materials, based on combining computerised X-ray micro-tomography and numerical simulations, is assessed. The permeability is found by solving fluid flow through the complex 3D pore structures obtained by tomography for actual material samples. We estimate overall accuracy of the method and compare numerical and experimental results. Factors contributing to uncertainty of the method include numerical error arising from the finite resolution of tomographic images and the rather small sample size available with the present tomographic techniques. The total uncertainty of computed values of permeability is, however, not essentiall…