Description of tortuosity and hydraulic conductivity of anisotropic porous materials

Single-phase fluid flow in porous media is usually direction dependent owing to the tortuosity associated with the internal structures of materials that exhibit inherent anisotropy. This paper presents an approach to determine the tortuosity and permeability of porous materials using a structural measure quantifying the anisotropic distribution of pore voids. The approach uses a volume averaging method through which the macroscopic tortuosity …