Permeability of porous materials determined from the Euler characteristic

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that the permeability of 2D porous materials can be predicted by the Euler characteristic of the conducting phase, independent of percolation threshold, based on experiments and simulations.

Contribution

It introduces a new permeability model based on the Euler characteristic, applicable across various porosities and grain shapes, without relying on percolation thresholds.

Findings

Permeability correlates with the Euler characteristic of the conducting phase.

The model agrees with experimental and simulation data over a wide porosity range.

Permeability depends on grain overlap probability, not shape.

Abstract

We study the permeability of quasi two-dimensional porous structures of randomly placed overlapping monodisperse circular and elliptical grains. Measurements in microfluidic devices and lattice Boltzmann simulations demonstrate that the permeability is determined by the Euler characteristic of the conducting phase. We obtain an expression for the permeability that is independent of the percolation threshold and shows agreement with experimental and simulated data over a wide range of porosities. Our approach suggests that the permeability explicitly depends on the overlapping probability of grains rather than their shape.