Tomography based determination of permeability, Dupuit–Forchheimer coefficient, and interfacial heat transfer coefficient in reticulate porous ceramics

• Published in: The International journal of heat and fluid flow 2008-02, Vol.29 (1), p.315-326
• Main Authors: Petrasch, Jörg, Meier, Fabian, Friess, Hansmartin, Steinfeld, Aldo
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Applied sciences; Building materials. Ceramics. Glasses; Ceramic industries; Chemical industry and chemicals; Dupuit–Forchheimer; Exact sciences and technology; Heat transfer coefficient; Numerical simulation; Permeability; Pore-level; Porous media; Structural ceramics; Technical ceramics; Tomography
• ISSN: 0142-727X; 1879-2278
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ijheatfluidflow.2007.09.001

A computer tomography based methodology is applied to determine the transport properties of fluid flow across porous media. A 3D digital representation of a 10-ppi reticulate porous ceramic (RPC) sample was generated by X-ray tomographic scans. Structural properties such as the porosity, specific interfacial surface area, pore-size distribution, mean survival time, two-point correlation function s 2, and local geometry distribution of the RPC sample are directly extracted from the tomographic data. Reference solutions of the fluid flow governing equations are obtained for Re = 0.2–200 by applying finite volume direct pore-level numerical simulation (DPLS) using unstructured, body-fitted, tetrahedral mesh discretization. The permeability and the Dupuit–Forchheimer coefficient are determined from the reference solutions by DPLS, and compared to the values predicted by selected porous media flow models, namely: conduit-flow, hydraulic radius theory, drag models, mean survival time bound, s 2-bound, fibrous bed correlations, and local porosity theory-based models. DPLS is further employed to determine the interfacial heat transfer coefficient and to derive a corresponding Nu-correlation, which is compared to empirical correlations.