Document Type

Article

Original Publication Date

2009

Journal/Book/Conference Title

Journal of Applied Physics

Volume

105

Issue

11

DOI of Original Publication

10.1063/1.3141737

Comments

Originally published at http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.3141737

Date of Submission

October 2015

Abstract

In this paper, a modeling study is presented to simulate the fluid infiltration in fibrous media. The Richards’ equation of two-phase flow in porous media is used here to model the fluid absorption in unsaturated/partially saturated fibrous thin sheets. The required consecutive equations, relative permeability, and capillary pressure as functions of medium’s saturation are obtained via fiber-level modeling and a long-column experiment, respectively. Our relative permeability calculations are based on solving the Stokes flow equations in partially saturated three-dimensional domains obtained by imaging the sheets’ microstructures. The Richards’ equation, together with the above consecutive correlations, is solved for fibrous media inclined with different angles. Simulation results are obtained for three different cases of upward, horizontal, and downward infiltrations. We also compared our numerical results with those of our long-column experiment and observed a good agreement. Moreover, we establish empirical coefficients for the semianalytical correlations previously proposed in the literature for the case of horizontal and downward infiltrations in thin fibrous sheets.

Rights

Jaganathan, S., Tafreshi, H. V., & Pourdeyhimi, B. A realistic modeling of fluid infiltration in thin fibrous sheets. Journal of Applied Physics, 105, 113522 (2009). Copyright © 2009 American Institute of Physics.

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VCU Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering Publications

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