How to Calculate Tortuosity Easily?

TL;DR

This paper reviews recent methods for calculating tortuosity in porous media, focusing on bridging the gap between theoretical definitions and practical measurement techniques using fluid velocity fields.

Contribution

It introduces new approaches to numerically and experimentally measure tortuosity directly from fluid velocity data, addressing previous computational challenges.

Findings

New numerical methods for tortuosity calculation

Experimental techniques for measuring tortuosity from velocity fields

Bridging theoretical and practical definitions of tortuosity

Abstract

Tortuosity is one of the key parameters describing the geometry and transport properties of porous media. It is defined either as an average elongation of fluid paths or as a retardation factor that measures the resistance of a porous medium to the flow. However, in contrast to a retardation factor, an average fluid path elongation is difficult to compute numerically and, in general, is not measurable directly in experiments. We review some recent achievements in bridging the gap between the two formulations of tortuosity and discuss possible method of numerical and an experimental measurements of the tortuosity directly from the fluid velocity field.