Отправлено: 27.04.16 12:15. Заголовок: Prediction of permeability of monodisperse granular materials with a micromechanics approach

Prediction of permeability of monodisperse granular materials with a micromechanics approach
Rongwei Yang, Eric Lemarchandb, Teddy Fen-Chong Kefei Li

Prediction of the permeability of porous media is of vital importance to such fields as petroleumengineering, agricultural
engineering and civil engineering. The liquid water within unsaturated granular materials is distinguished
as the intergranular layer, the wetting layer and the water film. By means of the micromechanics
approach, a physical conceptualmodel is developed to predict the permeability (intrinsic and relative permeabilities)
of themonodisperse granular materials. The proposedmodel has been validated by comparing the available
experimental data and the empirical models, and has been used to re-interpret the Kozeny–Carman's relation in
particular. The results obtained with this model show that the intergranular waterwill dominate the flow transport
when the saturation degree is higher than the residual saturation degree; when the saturation degree is
belowthe residual saturation degree, the wetting layerwill govern the flowtransport and the relative permeability
will decrease by 3 to 8 orders of magnitude depending on the connectivity of the wetting layer.