The permeability of replicated microcellular structures in the Darcy regime

Abstract

This study provides an extension to previously published articles on measurements and computational fluid dynamic (CFD) modeling and simulations of airflow across “bottleneck-type” structures in the Forchheimer regime to purely inertial-neglected (Darcy regime) incompressible flowing fluid via tomography datasets. A linear-dependent relationship between the CFD computed unit pressure drop developed across the samples and the superficial fluid inlet velocity was observed for all the samples for creeping fluid flow (0–7 × 10−03m/s −1). The permeability of the structures was observed to be dependent on the structural parameters of the porous medium and most importantly, its pore diameter openings. Linear graphical relations between permeability and pore-structure related properties of these materials were observed and these could assist in minimizing the number of design iterations needed for the processing of self-supporting porous metals.