Surface fractal dimension and its theoretical relationship with adsorbed water content

TL;DR

This paper develops a theoretical model linking surface fractal dimension to adsorbed water content in porous media, supported by empirical validation on soil samples, enhancing understanding of pore surface interactions.

Contribution

It introduces a novel theoretical relationship between surface fractal dimension and adsorbed water content based on physical principles, validated with soil data.

Findings

The model accurately estimates surface fractal dimension from physical principles.

Theoretical coefficients align with empirical logarithmic relationships.

Model explains constant coefficients observed in experiments.

Abstract

Surface fractal dimension Ds is a quantity describing the roughness of pore-solid interface where all interactions between solid matrix and fluid in the pore space occur. Ds also quantifies surface area; the higher the surface fractal dimension the greater the surface area. Therefore, at some high enough tension head, where a thin layer of water covers the pore-solid interface, one should expect adsorbed water content to be related to Ds in water-wet porous media. In this technical note, we develop a theoretical relationship between the surface fractal dimension, Ds, and the adsorbed water content, {\theta}_ads, using concepts from van der Waals and electrostatic forces. The proposed model sheds light on constant coefficients of logarithmic equations found empirically between Ds and water contents retained at 1500 and 10000 kPa tension heads. Results also show that our theoretical model estimates Ds from first physical principles for 164 soil samples accurately.