Numerical investigations of tortuosity in randomly generated pore structures

In the article, the tortuosity in randomly generated 2D pore structures with various porosity and size of a structural element forming the solid body is investigated. Two different numerical methods are applied: the Lattice Boltzmann Method and the self-developed algorithm, the so-called Path Searching Algorithm. The first method serves to calculate the hydraulic tortuosity based on the velocity field. The second method is used to detect free passages in the porous medium in the chosen space direction. In the study, 15000 different pore structures are investigated with 5 different resolutions of the numerical grid. The main result of the investigations is a new empirical function destined to estimate the tortuosity in cases where the porosity and the size of the structural element are known. Such functions are not known in the literature. (C) 2019 International Association for Mathematics and Computers in Simulation (IMACS). Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.