Permeability calculation of sphere-packed porous media using dissipative particle dynamics

In this study we developed a fundamental method to directly calculate hydraulic permeability and tortuosity relative to the Happel cell model [AIChE J. 4 (1958) 197–201] without any macroscopic assumptions. No transparent structural dependence was observed in hydraulic permeabilities from simulation results of parallel dissipative hydrodynamics. The Happel cell model constantly underestimates, by a minimum of volume fraction 0.524, the permeability of sphere-packed porous media using simple cubic, body-centered cubic, face-centered cubic, and random cake structures. Accurate uses of the Happel cell model and Carman-Kozeny equation are limited to a narrow range of dense volume fractions from 0.524 to 0.64, above which the true depiction of the permeability from dissipative particle dynamics (DHD) provides lower permeability than that estimated using conventional theories.