Influence of fiber orientation on the transverse permeability of fibrous media

In this work, we study the influence of in-plane and through-plane fiber orientations on a fibrous medium's transverse permeability. Three-dimensional virtual geometries resembling the microstructure of fibrous media with different fiber orientations are developed to be utilized in permeability calculations conducted by numerically solving the Stokes equations in the void space between fibers. Results of our simulations are compared to existing experimental and analytical studies from literature and excellent agreement is observed. We, in particular, demonstrate that the transverse permeability of a fibrous medium is independent of in-plane fiber orientation but increases with increasing deviation of the fibers' through-plane angle from zero. Our findings somewhat disagree with some of the conclusions made by Stylianopoulos et al. [Phys. Fluids 20, 123601 (2008)]. (C) 2009 American Institute of Physics. [DOI: 10.1063/1.3211192]