Tomography-based determination of porosity, specific area and permeability of snow and comparison with measurements

作者：Zermatten Emilie; Schneebeli Martin; Arakawa Hayato; Steinfeld Aldo^*

来源：Cold Regions Science and Technology, 2014, 97: 33-40.

DOI：10.1016/j.coldregions.2013.09.013

• Tomography
• Snow
• Permeability
• Darcy law
• Dupuit-Forchheimer coefficient

Micro-computed tomography (mu-CT) of snow replicas is used to characterize 34 snow samples by determining their specific surface area, porosity, effective permeability, anisotropy, and tortuosity. Their 3D geometrical representation obtained by mu-CT is used in direct pore-level simulations (DPLS) to numerically solve the governing mass and momentum conservation equations for fluid flow through porous media. It is found that inertial effects, given by a second and third order correction in Darcy's law, influence the air flow even at low Reynolds numbers. Correlations are derived for permeability, the Dupuit-Forchheimer coefficient and the third order coefficient of Darcy's law as a function of density and grain size. Comparison with the experimentally measured data yields good agreement and confirms the applicability of DPLS for determining the transport properties of snow.

• 出版日期2014-1