Darcy’s and Forchheimer’s laws in practice – Part 1: The experiment

Abstract

b s t r a c t The aim of this study is to derive flow parameters, which are permeability and Forchheimer coefficient, based on experimentally measured flow rates and pressure drops. When flow rates used in measurements exceed the limits of linear Darcy’s flow regime we discuss what needs to be taken into account while processing the measurements. The study consists of two parts. In this part we briefly recall Darcy’s and Forchheimer’s laws and address the issue of detecting transition between ranges of their applicability. Then we describe the experiment and discuss 8 different ways to process measurement data, four for Darcy’s, and four for Forchheimer’s models. The main topic of the second part is to provide recommendations for the best ways to process data, so that the results obtained with numerical models are in the best agreement with the experimental data. The results shown in the two papers belong to a larger work devoted to modeling fluid flows through porous media, with a special interest in granular beds.