Analysis of flow resistance in fractal porous media based on a three-dimensional pore-throat model

Abstract

Flow resistance in porous media is a difficult problem due to its importance and complexity of the fluid flow. Based on the original aligned and staggered pore-throat models, a new three-dimensional pore-throat model is established, and the analytical correlation of flow resistance is derived by employing the fractal theory in random porous media. The correlation is the function of porosity, ratio of porous diameters, sphericity coefficient of particles and Reynolds number. Prediction comparison among the proposed model, Yu model, Zheng model, Ergun model and experimental data in relevant literatures are carried out, and good agreement between the proposed model prediction and experiment data of literatures is obtained, and our model can obtain better predicting precision when the ratio of minimum capillary diameter λ min and maximum capillary diameter λ max equals to 10−3.