New model for estimating geometric tortuosity of variably saturated porous media using 3D synchrotron microcomputed tomography imaging
| Author | Jarrar, Zaher A. |
| Author | Al-Raoush, Riyadh I. |
| Author | Hannun, Jamal A. |
| Author | Alshibli, Khalid A. |
| Available date | 2023-06-04T07:16:32Z |
| Publication Date | 2021 |
| Publication Name | Soil Science Society of America Journal |
| Resource | Scopus |
| Abstract | Tortuosity has a significantimpact on flow and transport characteristics of porous media and plays a major role in many applications such as enhanced oil recovery, contaminant transport in aquifers, and fuel cells. Most analytical and theoretical models for determining tortuosity have been developed for ideal systems with assumptions that might not be representative of natural porous media. In this paper, geometric tortuosity was directly determined from three-dimensional (3D) tomography images of natural unconsolidated sand packs with a wide range of porosity, saturation, grain size distribution, and morphology. One hundred and thirty natural unconsolidated sand packs were imaged using 3D monochromatic and pink-beam synchrotron microcomputed tomography imaging. Geometric tortuosity was directly determined from the 3D images using the centroids of the connected paths in the flow direction of the media, and multivariate nonlinear regression analysis was adopted to develop a simple practical model to predict tortuosity of variably saturated natural unconsolidated porous media. Wetting phase saturation was found to provide a good estimate of relative tortuosity with an (Formula presented.) value of.93, even with a porosity variation between 0.3 and 0.5 of the porous media systems. The proposed regression model was compared to theoretical and analytical models available in the literature and was found to provide better estimates of geometric tortuosity with an (Formula presented.) value of.9 and a RMSE value of 0.117. 2021 The Authors. Soil Science Society of America Journal published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Soil Science Society of America |
| Sponsor | Open Access funding provided by the Qatar National Library. This publication was made possible by funding from Grant no. NPRP8-594-2-244 from the Qatar national research fund (a member of Qatar Foundation) and the Institute for a Secure and Sustainable Environment (ISSE), University of Tennessee-Knoxville, USA. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of funding agencies. The authors would like to thank Mr. Wadi Imseeh for his help during scanning. This paper used resources of the Advanced Photon Source (APS), a USDOE Office of Science User Facility operated for the USDOE Office of Science by Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) under Contract no. DE-AC02-06CH11357. The PSMT images presented in this paper were collected using the X-ray Operations and Research Beamline Station 13-BMD at Argonne Photon Source (APS), ANL. We thank Dr. Mark Rivers of APS for help in performing the SMT scans. We also acknowledge the support of GeoSoilEnviroCARS (Sector 13), which is supported by the National Science Foundation, Earth Sciences (EAR-1128799), and the USDOE, Geosciences (DE-FG02-94ER14466). The authors would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers who contributed with comments and suggestions to improve this paper. |
| Language | en |
| Publisher | John Wiley and Sons Inc |
| Subject | Aquifers Computerized tomography Enhanced recovery Fuel cells Geometry Grain size and shape Groundwater pollution Hydrogeology Molecular biology Petroleum transportation Porosity Regression analysis Contaminant transport Enhanced oil recovery Grain size distribution Microcomputed tomography Multivariate non-linear regression Threedimensional (3-d) Unconsolidated porous media Unconsolidated sands Porous materials estimation method geometry imaging method numerical model pollutant transport porous medium saturated medium three-dimensional modeling tomography tortuosity |
| Type | Article |
| Pagination | 1867-1879 |
| Issue Number | 6 |
| Volume Number | 85 |
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