Pore-wall roughness as a fractal surface and theoretical simulation of mercury intrusion/retraction in porous media

Journal Article · Wed Sep 01 04:00:00 EDT 1993 · Journal of Colloid and Interface Science; (United States)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1006/jcis.1993.1326· OSTI ID:6299657

Tsakiroglou, C D; Payatakes, A C ^[1]

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1. Univ. of Patras (Greece). Dept. of Chemical Engineering

The mercury intrusion/retraction curves of many types of porous materials (e.g., sandstones) have sections of finite slope in the region of high and very high pressure. This feature is attributed to the existence of microroughness on the pore walls. In the present work pore-wall roughness features are added to a three-dimensional primary network of chambers-and-throats using ideas of fractal geometry. The roughness of the throats is modeled with a finite number of self-similar triangular prisms of progressively smaller sizes. The roughness of the chambers is modeled in a similar way using right circular cones instead of prisms. Three parameters suffice for the complete characterization of the model of fractal roughness, namely, the number of features per unit length, the common angle of sharpness, and the number of layers (which is taken to be the same for throats and chambers). Analytical relations that give the surface area, pore volume, and mercury saturation of the pore network as functions of the fractal roughness parameters are developed for monolayer and multilayer arrangements. The chamber-and-throat network with fractal pore-wall roughness is used to develop an extended version of the computer-aided simulator of mercury porosimetry that has been reported in previous publications. This new simulator is used to investigate the effects of the roughness features on the form of mercury intrusion/retraction curves. It turns out that the fractal model of the porewall roughness gives an adequate representation of real porous media, and capillary pressure curves which are similar to the experimental ones for many typical porous materials such as sandstones. The method is demonstrated with the analysis of a Greek sandstone.

• OSTI ID: 6299657
• Journal Information: Journal of Colloid and Interface Science; (United States), Journal Name: Journal of Colloid and Interface Science; (United States) Vol. 159:2; ISSN 0021-9797; ISSN JCISA5
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
360606* -- Other Materials-- Physical Properties-- (1992-)
58 GEOSCIENCES
580000 -- Geosciences
ANALOG SYSTEMS
ELEMENTS
FRACTALS
FUNCTIONAL MODELS
MATERIALS
MEASURING INSTRUMENTS
MERCURY
METALS
MICROSTRUCTURE
PORE STRUCTURE
POROSIMETERS
POROSITY
POROUS MATERIALS
ROCKS
ROUGHNESS
SANDSTONES
SEDIMENTARY ROCKS
SIMULATORS
SURFACE AREA
SURFACE PROPERTIES
THREE-DIMENSIONAL CALCULATIONS
WALLS