# Three-Dimensional Digital Model Reconstruction and Seepage Characteristic Analysis of Porous Polyimide

## TL;DR

This paper uses 3D modeling and simulations to study how lubricants flow through porous polyimide materials used in aerospace bearings.

## Contribution

A validated lattice Boltzmann model is used to analyze seepage behavior in porous polyimide, revealing a 'preferential flow path' effect.

## Key findings

- Lubricant flow in PPI is dominated by a few large throats, showing a 'preferential flow path' effect.
- Microscopic flow features like velocity and pressure are strongly linked to pore structure properties.
- A complete workflow from structure reconstruction to flow analysis is established for porous material design.

## Abstract

This study focuses on porous polyimide (PPI) lubricating materials for high-speed aerospace bearings. Based on their real microstructure, three-dimensional digital model reconstruction and mesoscale seepage characteristics were investigated. First, a sequence of two-dimensional slice images of PPI was obtained using micro-focus X-ray computed tomography (CT). Through image filtering, threshold segmentation, and three-dimensional reconstruction, a highly faithful digital model of the pore structure was constructed, and a quantified pore-network model was further extracted. Second, a multiple-relaxation-time lattice Boltzmann model based on the D3Q27 discrete scheme was established, and its accuracy and stability in complex boundaries and pressure-driven flows were verified using classic benchmark cases. Subsequently, the validated numerical model was applied to the reconstructed PPI pore structure to simulate and systematically analyze the single-phase seepage behavior of lubricating oil. The results show that the lubricant seepage exhibits a strong “preferential flow path” effect, with most of the flow transported through a small number of large-size throats. A clear quantitative relationship exists between the microscopic flow field structure—including velocity distribution, flow paths, and pressure gradient—and the pore-topology features, such as throat-size distribution, connectivity, and tortuosity. This verifies the mesoscale mechanism that “structure governs flow.” The complete technical chain established in this work—“real-structure reconstruction–numerical model validation–seepage mechanism analysis”—provides a reliable theoretical and numerical tool for gaining deeper insight into the lubricant transport behavior in porous polyimide and offers guidance for the microstructural design and optimization of this material.