Anisotropic Porosity Research Articles

Porous silicon carbide structures with anisotropic open porosity for high- temperature cycling applications

We have prepared porous silicon carbide by a novel two-step template method. Graphite/SiC composites of required size and shape are first fabricated by hot pressing at 2125 °C, followed by the removal of the graphite template by controlled heat treatment. The anisotropy in the composite structure is restored after the removal of the template and porous SiC with anisotropic properties is obtained. The composite can be easily machined by electrical discharge machining because of the presence of graphite, and porous SiC can be obtained by heat treatment, solving the inherent difficulty in the machining of SiC. The mechanical properties, thermal conductivity, and thermal shock resistance of porous SiC have been studied in both directions. The material shows good thermal shock resistance in the perpendicular to pressing direction even at 1400 °C. Hence porous SiC suitably machined preserving the proper direction can be a potential candidate for thermal cycling applications.

Hydromechanical modeling of solid deformation and fluid flow in the transversely isotropic fissured rocks

Geomaterials containing fissures such as some sedimentary rocks often exhibit a bimodal pore size distribution, and they are also inherently anisotropic due to the distinct bedding planes. Hydromechanical modeling of solid deformation and fluid flow of such geomaterials remains a significant challenge. In this paper, we have developed a unique anisotropic double porosity elastoplastic framework to describe such processes. Furthermore, for the solid constitutive model, because of the loss of stress tensor coaxiality between the trial state and the final state, we have derived a new implicit return mapping algorithm to obtain the updated effective stress, history parameters and consistent tangent operator for any given strain increment efficiently, followed by a uniaxial strain point simulation to provide benchmark results. Subsequently, 3D stress point simulations are carried out to calibrate the projection and plasticity parameters using triaxial experimental data as well as to illustrate the strain-softening phenomenon. Initial boundary value problem simulations have been conducted to analyze the impacts of fluid flow and solid constitutive model on the resulting geomaterials’ responses. The overarching goal of this paper is to better understand the coupled solid deformation-fluid flow in the transversely isotropic fissured rocks.

Research on anisotropic permeability and porosity of columnar jointed rock masses during cyclic loading and unloading based on physical model experiments

In this paper, the permeability and porosity of self-prepared artificial columnar jointed rock masses (CJRM) with different columnar dip angles under different pore pressures during cyclic loading-unloading of confining pressure were measured. The experimental results indicate that the gas permeability of the artificial CJRM gradually decreases with the rise of pore pressure due to the existence of Klinkenberg effect, and Klinkenberg effect gradually decreases with the rise of columnar dip angle. The existence of it improves significantly the intrinsic permeability. Besides, the intrinsic permeability and porosity of artificial CJRM are more sensitive to the first loading than that of the intact cement mortar specimen. The permanent deformation of pores in the specimens mainly appears in the first cycle, and the subsequent cycles have smaller effects on the intrinsic permeability and porosity. The permanent deformation results in the intrinsic permeability, and porosity in the loading process is always higher than those in the unloading process. The intrinsic permeability gradually increases with the growth of columnar dip angle, exhibiting obvious permeability anisotropy. Under high confining pressure, the permeability anisotropy of artificial CJRM is less than that under low confining pressure. Meanwhile, under the same confining pressure, during the repeated loading-unloading cycles, the permeability anisotropy decreases gradually. The existence of a representative element volume (REV) for CJRM is verified; thus, the equivalent continuum media model can be utilized to analyse the seepage characteristics of CJRM.

SiC crystalline micro bullets on bio-carbon based charcoal substrate

Silicon carbide (SiC) micro bullets were grown on a bio-carbon based charcoal substrate, the morphology and crystal structure were analyzed. In order to collect the crystallographic details scanning electron microscopy (SEM), scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM/TEM) and high-angle annular dark-field scanning transmission electron microscopy (HAADF-STEM) were used. For this a thin lamella from the SiC micro bullet was extracted by focused ion beam (FIB). Electron microscopy revealed that the SiC micro bullets had a high density of stacking faults along their growth direction. However, the size and morphology of the micro bullets were relatively homogeneous, despite the high stacking fault density, i.e. the growth was quite robust at the synthesis temperature (1750 °C). The findings open up to SiC ceramics from bio-carbon with anisotropic porosity for the development of novel light weight high temperature resistant materials.

An “all-in-one” scaffold targeting macrophages to direct endogenous bone repair in situ

Scaffolds for tissue repair are designed in an increasingly complicated manner to meet multi-facet biological needs during the healing process. However, overly sophisticated design, especially the use of multiple components and delivery of exogenous cells, hampers the bench-to-bedside translation. Here, a multi-functional – yet mono-compositional – bioactive scaffold is devised to mediate the full-range, endogenous bone repair. Based on immunoactivity screening, a chemically-modified glucomannan polysaccharide is selected and processed into an anisotropic porous scaffold, which accurately stimulates macrophages to produce pro-regenerative cytokines. These cytokines effectively enhance the recruitment (“R”) and induced osteogenesis (“IO”) of the bone progenitor cells in situ. Meanwhile, the anisotropic porosity and carbohydrate signal of the scaffold facilitate differential adhesion (“A”) and distribution (“D”) of the macrophages and bone progenitor cells – enabling the former's accumulation at the surface while encouraging the latter's infiltration into the scaffold. Implanted in a rat calvarial defect model, this “RADIO” system effectively promotes healing over 12 weeks, with the obvious formation of hard callus through the scaffold. In summary, RADIO integrates multiple functions into one single scalable system (“all-in-one”) to govern the dynamic bone-repair process, by harnessing the power of host macrophages. RADIO represents an open platform to solving the long-lasting complexity-versus-simplicity dilemma in biomaterials design. Statement of SignificanceBiomaterials as versatile tools for tissue repair are becoming increasingly complicated, yet overly sophisticated design – especially the use of multiple components, exogenous cells, and overdosed growth factors – hampers their clinical application. The pre-requisite for designing a successful integrative scaffold is to identify an inherent biological target responding to biomaterial signals, thereby efficiently and safely promoting tissue repair via the endogenous healing capability instead of extra multifarious biochemical components. For bone regeneration, the pivotal regulator is macrophages. Through activating host macrophages, our single-component scaffold system coordinates the entire bone regenerative cascade in situ and induces successful bone regeneration in a calvarial defect model. This scaffold represents a scalable and multi-functional approach to effectively simplify the sophisticated design in regenerative medicine.

The Effect of Ti-6Al-4V Alloy Surface Structure on the Adhesion and Morphology of Unidirectional Freeze-Coated Gelatin

The modification of a metal implant surface with a biomimetic coating of bone-like anisotropic and graded porosity structures to improve its biological anchorage with the surrounding bone tissue at implanting, is still a high challenge. In this paper, we present an innovative way of a gelatin (GEL) dip-coating on Ti-6Al-4V substrates of different square-net surface textures by the unidirectional deep-freezing process at simultaneous cross-linking using carbodiimide chemistry. Different concentrations of GEL solution were used to study the changes in morphology, density, and mechanical properties of the coatings. In addition, the surface free energy and polarity of Ti-6Al-4V substrate surfaces and GEL solutions have been evaluated to assess the wetting properties at the substrate interfaces, and to describe the adhesion of GEL macromolecules with their surfaces, being supported by mechanical pull-out testing. The results indicate that the coating’s morphology depends primarily on the Ti-6Al-4V substrate’s surface texture and second, on the concentration of GEL, which further influences their adhesion properties, orientation, morphological arrangement, as well as compression strength. The substrate with a 300 × 300 μm2 texture resulted in a highly adhered GEL coating with ≥80% porosity, interconnected and well-aligned pores of 75–200 μm, required to stimulate the bone ingrowth, mechanically and histologically.

Novel freeze-casting device with high precision thermoelectric temperature control for dynamic freezing conditions.

A novel freeze-casting device utilizing a thermoelectric element for high precision temperature control allowing for dynamic freezing conditions of freeze-cast materials is presented. Freeze-casting is a processing route for producing materials of anisotropic porosity in the form of aligned and well-defined microchannels. In freeze-casting, particulates of a material are suspended in a fluid and a thermal gradient is applied across for directional freezing. Controlling the thermal gradient across the suspension amounts to controlling the kinetics and freezing direction in the suspension and thus the resulting structural features and dimensions of the microchannels. The performance of the device presented here was evaluated by directional freezing of both water and aqueous ceramic suspension samples using both linear and exponential freezing profiles. The freezing front was successfully tracked by continuously measuring the temperature gradient along the sample using thermocouples directly mounted on the freeze-casting mold. The current minimum operational temperature of the freeze-caster is ∼220 K, with freezing front velocities in the range of ∼5 μm/s to 30 μm/s for sample lengths of 5 mm-25 mm.

Investigation of Anisotropic Permeability and Porosity of CJRM considering Different Confinement Loading Pressures

An innovative method is proposed to prepare artificial columnar jointed rock masses (CJRM) with different columnar dip angles, and laboratory physical model tests are conducted to investigate anisotropic permeability and porosity characteristics of the prepared artificial CJRM. In the physical model experiment, permeability and porosity of artificial CJRM with different columnar dip angles is measured during three times cyclic loading and unloading of confinement pressure. Based on the results of the laboratory model tests, the Equivalent Continuum Media Model was applied to analyse anisotropic permeability of CJRM. The main conclusions are summarized as follows. In the first loading phase of confinement pressure, the impacts of confinement pressure on the anisotropic permeability of artificial CJRM, porosity, and the major and minor principle permeability coefficients (PPCs) are significant, while in the following stages of confinement pressure loading and unloading, the change of them is small, with stable value. Permeability of artificial CJRM gradually increases with rise of columnar dip angle, and the permeability anisotropy of artificial CJRM under low confinement pressure is higher than that under low confinement pressure.

Binder-free supercapacitor electrodes: Optimization of monolithic graphitized carbons by reflux acid treatment

The rational design of electrodes mimicking the cellular structure of natural bio-resources has been a matter of increasing interest for applications in energy storage. Due to their anisotropic and hierarchical porosity, monolithic carbon materials from natural wood precursors are appealing as electrodes for supercapacitor applications due to their interconnected channels, relatively low cost and environmentally friendly synthesis process. In this work, a liquid-phase oxidative treatment with refluxing nitric acid at 100 °C for 8 h was performed to enhance the surface properties of beech-derived graphitized carbons treated with an iron catalyst. Microstructural, textural and surface investigations revealed that this strategy was successful in removing amorphous carbon and in functionalizing their surfaces. The crystallinity, accessible surface area, micropore volume and surface functionality of beech-derived carbons were increased upon the reflux treatment. The resulting porous carbon materials were evaluated as binderless monolithic electrodes for supercapacitors applications in aqueous KOH electrolyte. A maximum specific capacitance of 179 F·g−1 and a volumetric capacitance of 89 F·cm−3 in galvanostatic charge/discharge experiments were reached. Monolithic electrodes exhibited good cycling stability, with a capacitance retention over 95% after 10,000 cycles.

Modeling sintering anisotropy in ceramic stereolithography of silica

In the domain of ceramic additive manufacturing, sintering is a key step for controlling the final shape and mechanical strength of a 3D object. The thermal treatment of the printed green objects has a high influence on the specimen density, debinding, and sintered microstructure. This work focuses on the shrinkage anisotropy phenomenon that occurs during sintering. We demonstrate by dilatometry and interrupted sintering microstructure analysis that this phenomenon originates from non-ideal particle packing between the printed layers, which generates an anisotropic porosity distribution at the mesoscale. Based on this, a sintering model is developed and specially adapted for the numerical prediction of the sintering anisotropy. This model is formulated in analytic equations that can easily identify all the model parameters and reproduce the experimental dimensional changes. This numerical tool can be of great assistance in the prediction of additive manufacturing object dimensional changes during sintering.

An efficient rock-physics workflow for modeling and inversion in anisotropic organic-shales

In this work we present a workflow for modeling and inversion of physical parameters using ultrasonic wave velocities measured on dry and saturated samples of Bakken, Bazhenov shales and Niobrara marls. The forward problem is based on the well known theory of Ciz and Shapiro (2007) combined with the anisotropic generalization of two empirical elastic models for the rock matrix: the critical porosity model Nur et al. (1998) and Krief et al. model (1990). Moreover, taking into account the high variability of the physical properties of kerogen and clay minerals, and their influence on the mechanical properties of these rocks, the procedure also involves the numerical inversion of such properties, using an efficient numerical routine. The results found for the effective elastic properties and density of clay minerals and kerogen are reasonable taking into account those published in the reference literature. In all cases the quality of fit between real and synthetic data is analysed by means of an adequate error measure. The stability of the predicted elastic coefficients is verified using strain energy restrictions. The calibrated models are also used to quantify the influence of the effective porosity on the computations and for a fluid substitution problem. Finally, we found that even for weak anisotropy the generalized Krief's model requires at least three empirical parameters. We conclude that our novel anisotropic critical porosity model is a simpler and more efficient choice for rock-physics applications.

The effect of gelation on statically and dynamically freeze‐cast structures

AbstractFreeze‐casting is a technique used to produce structures with anisotropic porosity in the form of well‐defined microchannels throughout a sample. Here, this technique is used on the magnetocaloric ceramic La0.66Ca0.26Sr0.07 Mn1.05O3. We show that a dynamic freezing profile, where the temperature is decreased continuously at −10 K/min, results in homogeneous, lamellar channels with widths of ∼15 µm, while static freezing, where the temperature is kept constant at 177 K, results in channels of increasing size away from the initial ice crystal nucleation site. The effect of gelation before freeze‐casting is also investigated. Gelation inhibits ice crystal growth, which significantly changes the morphology by making channel cross sections less elongated, while additionally introducing more dendrites and ceramic bridges in the structure. The latter significantly dominates the flow path through the gelated structures, affecting the calculated tortuosity, which increases to τ ≈ 4 when compared to non‐gelated samples where calculated tortuosities are in the range of ∼1.3 to ∼3. Finally, we present a systematic and automatic approach for evaluating channel and wall sizes and calculating tortuosities. This is based on analysis of images obtained by scanning electron microscopy using a continuous particle size distribution method and the TauFactor application in MATLAB®.

Three-Dimensional Modelling of Heterogeneous Coastal Aquifer: Upscaling from Local Scale

The aquifer heterogeneity is often simplified while conceptualizing numerical model due to lack of field data. Conducting field measurements to estimate all the parameters at the aquifer scale may not be feasible. Therefore, it is essential to determine the most significant parameters which require field characterization. For this purpose, the sensitivity analysis is performed on aquifer parameters, viz., anisotropic hydraulic conductivity, effective porosity and longitudinal dispersivity. The results of the sensitivity index and root mean square deviation indicated, that the longitudinal dispersivity and anisotropic hydraulic conductivity are the sensitive aquifer parameters to evaluate seawater intrusion in the study area. The sensitive parameters are further characterized at discrete points or at local scale by using regression analysis. The longitudinal dispersivity is estimated at discrete well points based on Xu and Eckstein regression formula. The anisotropic hydraulic conductivity is estimated based on established regression relationship between hydraulic conductivity and electrical resistivity with R2 of 0.924. The estimated hydraulic conductivity in x and y-direction are upscaled by considering the heterogeneous medium as statistically homogeneous at each layer. The upscaled model output is compared with the transversely isotropic model output. The bias error and root mean square error indicated that the upscaled model performed better than the transversely isotropic model. Thus, this investigation demonstrates the necessity of considering spatial heterogeneous parameters for effective modelling of the seawater intrusion in a layered coastal aquifer.

Modelling urban floods using a finite element staggered scheme with an anisotropic dual porosity model

In porosity models for urban flooding, artificial porosity is used as a statistical descriptor of the urban medium. Buildings are treated as subgrid-scale features and, even with the use of relatively coarse grids, their effects on the flow are accounted for. Porosity models are attractive for large-scale applications due to limited computational demand with respect to solving the classical Shallow Water Equations on high-resolution grids. In the last decade, effective schemes have been developed that allowed accounting for a wealth of sub-grid processes; unfortunately, they are known to suffer from oversensitivity to mesh design in the case of anisotropic porosity fields, which are typical of urban layouts. In the present study, a dual porosity approach is implemented into a two-dimensional Finite Element numerical scheme that uses a staggered unstructured mesh. The presence of buildings is modelled using an isotropic porosity in the continuity equation, to account for the reduced water storage, and a tensor formulation for conveyance porosity in the momentum equations, to account for anisotropy and effective flow velocity. The element-by-element definition of porosities, and the use of a staggered grid in which triangular cells convey fluxes and continuity is balanced at grid nodes, allow avoiding undesired mesh-dependency. Tested against refined numerical solutions and data from a laboratory experiment, the model provided satisfactory results. Model limitations are discussed in view of applications to more complex, real urban layouts.

Tunable anisotropic networks for 3-D oriented neural tissue models

Organized networks are common in nature showing specific tissue micro-architecture, where cells can be found isotropically or anisotropically distributed in characteristic arrangements and tissue stiffness. However, when addressing an in vitro tissue model, it is challenging to grant control over mechanical properties while achieving anisotropic porosity of polymeric networks, especially in three-dimensional systems (3-D). While progress was achieved organizing cells in two-dimension (2-D), fabrication methods for aligned networks in 3-D are limited. Here, we describe the use of a biomimetic extra-cellular matrix system allowing programming of anisotropic structures into precisely advancing pore diameters in 3-D. Using control over polymeric composition, crosslinking directionality and freezing gradient dynamics, we revealed a mechanism to top-down biofabricate 3-D structures with tunable micro-porosity capable of directing cellular responses at millimeter scale such as axonal anisotropic outgrowth that is a unique characteristic of the brain cortex. Further, we showed the unique integration of this method with a microfluidic system establishing a neural-endothelial heterotypic conjugation, which can potentially be broadly applied to multiple organ systems.

Towards district scale flood simulations using conventional and anisotropic porosity shallow water models with high-resolution topographic information

Current topographic survey technology provides high-resolution (HR) datasets for urban environments. Incorporating this HR information in models aiming to provide flood risk assessment is desirable because the flood wave propagation is depending on the urban topographic features, i.e. buildings, bridges and street networks. Conceptual, numerical and practical challenges arise from the application of shallow water models to HR urban flood modeling. For instance, numerical challenges are occurrence of wet-dry fronts, geometric discontinuities in the urban environment and discontinuous solutions, i.e. shock waves. These challenges can be overcome by using a Godunov-type scheme. However, the computational cost of this type of schemes is high, such that HR two-dimensional shallow water simulations with practical relevance have to be run on supercomputers. The porous shallow water model is an alternative approach that aims to reduce computational cost by using a coarse resolution and accounting for unresolved processes by means of the porosity terms. Usually, a speedup between two and three orders of magnitude in comparison to HR simulations can be obtained. This study reports preliminary results of a practical test case concerning pluvial flooding in a district of the city of Nice, France, caused by the intense rainfall event on October 3rd, 2015. HR topography data set on a 1 m resolution is available for the district, whereby street features of infra-metric dimensions have been included. A reference solution is calculated by a HR shallow water model on a 1 m by 1 m structured computational grid. The porous shallow water model is run on a 10 m by 10 m grid and the influence of the drag source term is studied. The model results show a large deviation, which is caused by the poor meshing strategy of the porous shallow water (AP) model. The study also summarizes practical challenges that arise during the application of the AP and HR models to a large urban catchment. The main difficulty is to obtain a good mesh. In smaller scale investigations, the mesh is currently constructed by hand such that the cell edges align with buildings. This approach is not feasible for large scale urban catchments with a large number of buildings. Future steps that have to be taken, such as a strategy for automatic mesh generation, are reported on.

Anisotropic Adsorption Swelling and Permeability Characteristics with Injecting CO2 in Coal

The changes of anisotropic adsorption–swelling and permeability with injecting CO2 in coal influence the CO2 injectivity during CO2-ECBM or CGS (ECBM = enhancing coal bed methane; CGS = CO2 geological sequestration). To strengthen the understanding of this issue, two special-made cubic coal samples were adopted to test the porosity, swelling, and permeability in parallel face cleat and bedding plane direction, parallel butt cleat and bedding plane direction, and vertical bedding plane direction. To quantitatively characterize the anisotropic porosity, anisotropic swelling, and anisotropic permeability, an anisotropy index was introduced in this work. The results show that porosity anisotropy reflects the pore connectivity in different directions, which fall in the order of parallel face cleat and bedding plane direction > parallel butt cleat and bedding plane direction > vertical bedding plane direction. The porosity varieties can be owed to the compaction effect, thermal evolution effect, banded structur...

Modelling urban floods using a finite element staggered scheme with porosity and anisotropic resistance

Artificial porosity models for urban flooding use porosity as a statistical descriptor for the presence of buildings, which are then treated as subgridscale features. Computational efficiency makes porosity models attractive for large-scale applications. These models are typically implemented in the framework of two-dimensional (2D) finite volume collocated schemes. The most effective schemes, falling under the category of Integral Porosity models, allow accounting for a wealth of sub-grid processes, but they are known to suffer from oversensitivity to mesh design in the case of anisotropic porosity fields. In the present exploratory study, a dual porosity approach is implemented into a staggered finite element numerical model. The free surface elevation is defined at grid nodes, where continuity equation is solved; fluxes are conveyed by triangular cells, which act as 2D-links between adjacent grid nodes. The presence of building is modelled using an isotropic porosity in the continuity equation to account for the reduced water storage, and an anisotropic conveyance porosity in the momentum equations to compute bottom shear stress. Both porosities are defined on an element-by-element basis, thus avoiding mesh-dependency. Although suffering a number of limitations, the model shows promising results.

Improvement of anisotropic porosity models with a merging technique

Anisotropic porosity shallow-water models are used to take into account detailed topographic information through porosity parameters multiplying the various terms of the shallow-water equations. A storage porosity is assigned to each cell to reflect the void fraction in the cell and a conveyance porosity is used at each edge to reproduce the impact of subgrid obstacles on the flux terms. To guaranty the numerical stability, the time step depends on the value of the porosity parameters. This may hamper severely the computational efficiency in the presence of cells with low values of storage porosity. Cartesian grids are particularly sensitive to such a case since the meshing stems directly from the choice of the grid size. In this paper, this problem is addressed by using an original merging technique consisting in merging cells with a storage porosity lower than a threshold value with neighbouring cells. The model was tested for modelling a prismatic channel with different orientations between the Cartesian computational grid and the channel direction. The results show that the standard anisotropic porosity model (without merging) improves the reproduction of the flow characteristics; but at the cost of a significantly higher computational time. In contrast, the computational time is drastically reduced and the accuracy preserved when the merging technique is used with the porosity model.

Influence of urban pattern on inundation flow in floodplains of lowland rivers

The objective of this paper is to investigate the respective influence of various urban pattern characteristics on inundation flow. A set of 2000 synthetic urban patterns were generated using an urban procedural model providing locations and shapes of streets and buildings over a square domain of 1×1km2. Steady two-dimensional hydraulic computations were performed over the 2000 urban patterns with identical hydraulic boundary conditions. To run such a large amount of simulations, the computational efficiency of the hydraulic model was improved by using an anisotropic porosity model. This model computes on relatively coarse computational cells, but preserves information from the detailed topographic data through porosity parameters. Relationships between urban characteristics and the computed inundation water depths have been based on multiple linear regressions. Finally, a simple mechanistic model based on two district-scale porosity parameters, combining several urban characteristics, is shown to capture satisfactorily the influence of urban characteristics on inundation water depths. The findings of this study give guidelines for more flood-resilient urban planning.