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PORE NETWORK MODELS FOR DRYING CAPILLARY POROUS MEDIA:

RECENT ACHIEVEMENTS AND REMAINING CHALLENGES

Abdolreza KHARAGHNI
Thermal Process Engineering, Otto von Guericke University
Universitaetsplatz 2, 39106, Magdeburg, Germany
Tel.:+49-391-51362, E-mail: abdolreza.kharaghani@ovgu.de

Abstract: The drying of capillary porous materials, which are saturated initially with a
pure liquid or a solution agent, is a complex process since it involves several physical
effects such as capillary pumping, viscous liquid flow, phase transition, vapor diffusion,
as well as dissolved salt transport and crystallization. An efficient approach to study these
effects at the pore scale as well as the influence of the pore structure/morphology on both
the drying kinetics and on the liquid and precipitated salt crystal distribution over time is
via pore network models. In these models the void space of a porous medium is
represented by a network of geometrically simple pores, and discrete transport rules are
imposed to describe the fluid and salt transport. Crystallization occurs when the solution
has reached a certain degree of supersaturation. This keynote lecture presents an
introduction to the pore network modeling approach, pointing out the necessary input
parameters, describing key elements of numerical algorithms, and discussing simulation
results together with remaining research challenges. Finally, a new methodology is
introduced by which macroscopic transport parameters of continuum-scale models, such
as relative permeabilities, effective diffusion coefficient or capillary pressure curve, can
be estimated from three-dimensional pore network simulation results.

Keywords: network models, salt transport, pore structure, macroscopic parameters, drying