Transport properties in sintered porous media composed of two particle sizes

Abstract

The authors have studied sintered bimodal distributions of spheres (size ratio 1:4). They discuss the preparation and the characterisation of these model porous structures where the porosity can be adjusted by varying the ratio of sphere diameters, the volume ratio as well as the rate of sintering. They study the formation factor (effect resistivity of the pore fluid) and permeability of the materials as a function of porosity. A comparison with a previous work by Wong, Koplik and Tomanic (1984) on sintered monosize distributions of spheres leads to the definition of an effective length scale for their problem. It is defined by an average on the grain geometry and is independent of the porosity. They also discuss other candidate length scales using measurements of formation factor and permeability.