Investigating the impact of deformation on foam permeability through CT scans and the Lattice‐Boltzmann method

Abstract

Foam has a wide range of applications, where the study of its properties and mechanical response has gained a lot of attention in recent years. To deepen the understanding of foam's behavior, the underlying research proposes a new study to determine the deformation‐dependent permeability of foam using a combination of CT scans and the Lattice‐Boltzmann method (LBM). Specifically, the three‐dimensional mesoscopic structure of the foam is reconstructed using nano‐CT images at different compression levels including uncompressed, 15, 25, 35, and 50 percentages of compression. After processing the data from the CT scans, the LBM is applied to simulate single‐phase fluid flow in the deformed porous domain. The permeability at each corresponding deformation stage is characterized and determined by the LBM using the open‐access Palabos software. In this work, the deformation‐dependent intrinsic permeability tensor is considered by applying a meso‐macro hierarchic upscaling scheme. According to the CT scan outcomes, the compression level is inversely proportional to the porosity. The physical phenomenon is discussed in detail and the effect of image resolution on the permeability computation accuracy is investigated.