A Computational Evaluation of Flow Through Porous Media: the Understanding and Quantitative Description of Fluid Flow Through Porous Media

The understanding and quantitative description of fluid flow through porous media, is a science which has been going on for many years and investigated in a variety of disciplines. Studies in this field have primarily been based on models, which can either be described as empirical or theoretical. Part of the current study is to understand fluid flow in porous media through studying three recent theoretical pore-scale models based on the concept of a Representative Unit Cell (RUC), to represent a porous medium. Amongst other assumptions, these models assumed plane Poiseuille flow throughout each pore section of a rectangular RUC. The main objective of this study is to numerically verify this assumption using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) software, FLUENT version 6.2.16. Attention is also paid to comparison between these models with the experimental data, obtained during the model tests of airflow through a timber stack end, undertaken in a wind tunnel. The laminar and intermediate airflow through a timber stack end is simulated using the commercial software FLUENT, and the results are validated against the theoretical pore-scale models and experimental data.