International Communications in Heat and Mass Transfer 81 (2017) 51–55

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International Communications in Heat and Mass Transfer

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ichmt

Fractal description of microstructures and properties of dynamically

evolving porous media
A. Verma, R. Pitchumani ⁎
Advanced Materials and Technologies Laboratory, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia 24061-0238, United States

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Available online xxxx Transport through porous media is encountered in several engineering and biological applications. The porous
media can be subjected to changes in structure owing to deposition, erosion, swelling or shrinkage which, in
Keywords: turn, affects the transport properties of the media. A dynamic fractal model (DFM) is developed to describe the
Fractal dimensions evolution in pore structure undergoing deposition using fractal dimensions and to predict the changes in the ef-
Dynamic fractal model fective diffusivity in terms of the dynamic fractal dimensions. Evolving microstructures undergoing deposition
Porous media
are analyzed at various saturation levels to determine the effective diffusivity using the dynamic fractal model.
Saturation
Diffusivity
The effective diffusivity values of the evolving porous media are compared against existing data in the literature.
Image analysis © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction analysis of reconstructed pore structure to characterize the transport

The structure of porous media commonly undergoes changes over
time as part of several physical processes such as flow in fuel cell layers,
transport in batteries, fouling of membranes during filtration, percola-
tion of minerals through rocks, contaminant transport and carbon-
dioxide storage as seen in oil and gas industry, flow in biological tissue,
and chemical vapor infiltration. Describing transport properties such as
permeability, diffusivity and conductivity in these dynamically evolving
porous media is critical to fundamental understanding, design and opti-
mization of such systems and forms the focus of the proposed study.
Several experimental studies in the past have focused on measure-
ment of transport properties in porous media by quantifying pressure
drop, species concentration and flow. Recent literature has seen in-
crease in numerical work involving reconstruction of porous media
combined with pore scale modeling to predict transport properties
[1–7]. Owing to their disordered nature, pore structures can be well de-
scribed by fractal dimensions that, in turn, are used to predict transport
properties such as permeability, conductivity and diffusivity [8–14]. Al-
though the properties of porous media have been explored extensively,
the study of changes in pore structure and, in turn, the corresponding
properties owing to deposition, erosion swelling or shrinking remains
a relatively unexplored area.
Previous theoretical and experimental studies have mainly focused
on determining the properties for pore structures at the beginning of de-
position or erosion, followed by use of analytical models or experimental
correlations to describe changes in transport properties with deposition.
The few studies relating to permeability reduction have used pore scale
⁎ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: pitchu@vt.edu (R. Pitchumani).
properties. Chen et al. [6] used X-ray computed microtomography
(XCMT) to construct three-dimensional (3D) geometry of the pore struc-
ture before and after colloid deposition, followed by Lattice Boltzmann
(LB) simulations to evaluate change in local permeability and tortuosity.
It was found that the change in permeability followed a power law var-
iation with respect to porosity and the results significantly differed from
the predictions using Kozeny-Carman relationship. Similar studies in-
volving XCMT and LB modeling were performed by Okabe et al. [7].
The most common practice is to use the Bruggeman equation [15]
that relates the effective transport properties to the porosity of the me-
dium and a constant term denoting the tortuosity. A limitation of this
description is that any two geometries (pore structure) with same po-
rosity would exhibit similar behavior irrespective of their morphology,
which is inaccurate. In the absence of a comprehensive and accurate
theoretical model, researchers use experimental data to obtain a corre-
lation between tortuosity and porosity for different pore structures. The
resulting models are, therefore, correlatory and not predictive. In the
case of dynamic changes in pore structures, the number of experiments
increases exponentially for a comprehensive description and, in some
cases, the measurements require sophisticated tools and extensive ef-
fort to effectively determine the changes in pore structure. Moreover,
the use of oversimplified models that are inaccurate, or the reliance on
empirical expressions that involve tuning factors or post-facto correla-
tions of experiments do not offer a truly predictive approach to describ-
ing evolving porous media and their properties.
In this communication, we address the challenge of predicting the
evolution of pore structure as a function of deposition, saturation or ero-
sion using a fractal model. A model to predict the changes in fractal di-
mensions for a pore structure undergoing deposition is developed and
compared with the predictions obtained from image analysis. The

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.icheatmasstransfer.2016.11.008
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52 A. Verma, R. Pitchumani / International Communications in Heat and Mass Transfer 81 (2017) 51–55

variation in effective diffusivity is predicted with the dynamic fractal

model and compared with analytical solutions from other studies.

2. Fractal model

Fig. 1 shows the microstructural image of a disordered porous medi-

um [12], where the black regions represent the pores and the white
areas denote the solid matrix formed by the agglomeration of copper
particles. Owing to the randomness and presence of multiple length
scales, common to a wide range of porous media encountered in practi-
cal applications, the porous medium in Fig. 1 can be represented by frac-
tal dimensions [1–10,14]. In a fractal representation, the pore
architecture is usually quantified in terms of fractal dimensions dT and
dN, corresponding to the tortuosity and area dimensions, respectively.
The porous medium in this description can be envisioned to be a distri-
bution of tortuous capillaries of various sizes, with the effective length,
Lc, of a capillary of size λ given by [8–13]:

Lc ðλÞ ¼ λ1−dT Ld0T ð1Þ

where L0 is a representative length and dT is the tortuosity fractal di-

mension, such that a value of dT = 1 corresponds to a straight capillary
and dT = 2 corresponds to a highly tortuous medium. For a complete de-
scription of the pore structure, it is essential to also quantify the number
of capillary pathways corresponding to every pore size, λ. The popula-
tion of the intersecting pores in a cross section exhibits the general
trend that N(L ≥ λ), which denotes the total number of pores of size ex-
ceeding or equal to a value λ, increases as the pore size decreases.
Hence, the cumulative pore distribution in a cross section can be repre-
sented by [8–13]: The theory of fractal dimensions and representation
Fig. 2. Box-counting analysis for (a) area flow dimension, dN and (b) tortuosity dimension,
of porous media using these dimensions is well established and is not dT.
discussed in detail here. Readers are referred to Refs. [8–14] for a
more detailed explanation.


λmax dN dN (= 1.76 for Fig. 1), which is representative of the cumulative pore
NðL ≥λÞ¼ ð2Þ
λ distribution as given by Eq. (2). The value calculated by Yu and Cheng
[12] for the above geometry was 1.79 considering a bi-dispersed porous
The area and tortuosity dimensions can be obtained from a box- media, which is very close to the value obtained here, while treating the
counting analysis [9,10] of the area and the perimeter of the pores, re- media as mono-dispersed. Similarly, by using the box-counting method
spectively, in a microstructural image of the porous structure. The re- on the perimeter of the pores [9,10], the tortuosity dimension, dT, can be
sults of box-counting analysis of the microstructure in Fig. 1 are obtained from the slope of a linear fit through data on a log-log plot to
presented in Fig. 2, where Fig. 2(a) describes the log-log variation of be dT (=1.18 for Fig. 1), as seen in Fig. 2(b).
the cumulative pore distribution as a function of pore size. The negative
of slope of a linear fit through the data gives the area fractal dimension, 3. Deposition in porous media

Based on the fractal description discussed above, the changes in pore

structure as a function of saturation or deposition is modeled. Deposi-
tion (or saturation) is simulated in porous media by numerically dilat-
ing [16] the solid boundaries in the pore structure image to mimic a
physical deposition in pores. Fig. 3 shows the pore structure images
with different saturation values, where saturation is defined
as, s = 1 − εnew/ε0, with ε0 and εnew as the porosity of the medium be-
fore and after deposition, respectively. The porosity and saturation
values for Fig. 3(a), (b), (c) are s = 0, 0.116, 0.208 and ε = 0.575,
0.508, 0.456, respectively. The methodology to quantify changes in frac-
tal dimensions with changes in saturation levels is discussed next.

3.1. Evaluating changes in dN

According to Yu and Cheng [12], the area fractal dimension, dN, can
be expressed as:

lnε
dN ¼ k− ð3Þ
λ
ln min
Fig. 1. Microstructure image of a disordered porous media [12]. λmax
 A. Verma, R. Pitchumani / International Communications in Heat and Mass Transfer 81 (2017) 51–55 53

s=0 s = 0.116 s = 0.208

Fig. 3. Pore structure images with different levels of saturation.

where k represents the dimensionality namely, 2 for two dimensions where α = λmin/λmax. For very small α,
and 3 for three dimensions, and λmin and λmax are the minimum and
maximum size of the pores, respectively. For the present case,
dT
1 dN
Leff ¼ λmax ð10Þ
lnε β ð1−dT −dN Þ
dN ¼ 2− : ð4Þ
λ
ln min
λmax
Similarly, the effective length at any level of saturation, s, can be
0 0 given by:
It follows that for change in porosity from ε to ε(s) = ε (1− s):

2−dN ln ε 0 ln ε 0
0 0
1 dT dN
0 ¼ ¼ ð5Þ Leff ðsÞ ¼ λmax 
2−dN lnεðsÞ ln ε 0 ð1−sÞ 0 0  ð11Þ
βðsÞ 1−dT −dN

where dN′ is the area fractal dimension of the pore structure at satura-
tion, s, such that dN′b dN for increase in saturation, s. Pitchumani and
Ramakrishnan [9,10] used area fraction to establish relationship be-
tween the pore geometry and fractal dimensions. Since the area fraction
is a representative of volume fraction it was derived that:

 
dN ¼ 2 1−β2 ; β ¼ λmax =L0 ð6Þ

3.2. Evaluating changes in dT

For small values of deposition, it can be envisioned that there is no

change in the effective length of the pores, and it follows from Eq. (1)
that

!d0T −1

Lc ðλÞ L0 L0 dT −1
¼ pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi ¼ ð7Þ
L0 λ0 ð1−sÞ λ0

pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
where dT′ and λ0 ð1−sÞ are, respectively, the area dimension and pore
size at saturation, s. Accordingly, dT′ can be written as:


L0
ln
0 λ0
dT ¼ 1 þ ðdT −1Þ ! ð8Þ
L0
ln pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
λ0 ð1−sÞ

The cumulative length of the pores, Leff, is given by:

dT  
eff λ 1 1−α 1−dT −dN
L ¼ ∫ λmax Lc ðλÞdN ðλÞ ¼ λmax dN ð9Þ Fig. 4. Variation in (a) area dimension, dN and (b) tortuosity dimension, dT, as a function of
min
β ð1−dT −dN Þ saturation.
54 A. Verma, R. Pitchumani / International Communications in Heat and Mass Transfer 81 (2017) 51–55
Fig. 5. Effective diffusivity as a function of porosity.
For small values of saturation, it may be assumed that Leff = Leff(s),
and from Eqs. (10) and (11) it can be deduced that:

dT −d0T 
1 pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi1−d0T ð1−dT −dN Þ d0N
¼ ð1−sÞ  0 0 
β 1−dT −dN dN
Thus, from Eq. (12) it can be inferred that dT′(β, dN, s) b dT for s N 0.
Fig. 4(a) presents the variation in dN as calculated from the box-
counting method and that obtained from Eq. (5). The images with dif-
ferent levels of saturation were created, similar to that described for
Fig. 3, for extracting fractal dimensions using image analysis. It can be
seen that dN decreases with increase in saturation, with Eq. (5)
predicting a similar trend to that described by image analysis. It is
noted that the predictions from Eq. (5) show a larger deviation from
the results obtained by box-counting method (image analysis) with in-
crease in saturation. This can be attributed to the fact that a theoretical
Sierpinski triangle model [12] was used to derive the relationship in
Eq. (4) and, in turn, Eq. (5) whereas, in reality, the porous structure dif-
fers from the idealized Sierpinski construct, as evident from the fractal
dimension obtained through image analysis. In the absence of a better
comprehensive theoretical model to accurately describe the changes
in dN′ as seen in Fig. 4(a), Eq. (5) may be considered to best represent
the evolution of area fractal dimension for very small values of
saturation.
Fig. 4(b) shows the variation in tortuosity fractal dimension dT as a
function of saturation where the results from image analysis (box-
counting method) are represented by solid line. It can be seen that dT re-
duces with the increase in saturation, and that the results from the dy-
namic model (Eq. (12)) closely predict the changes as observed from
image analysis. The reduction in dT may be understood by considering
that the pores with smaller diameter become less relevant to describing
the pore structure with increase in saturation, resulting in increase in
average pore size and correspondingly smaller values of dT. It is to be
noted here that above relationship is derived for smaller values of satu-
ration and might not hold true for larger saturations where there is sig-
nificant restructuring of transport path, and a distribution of dT over
different ranges of saturations.
3.3. Evaluating changes in effective diffusivity
Following an analysis of the transport through the fractal capillaries
representing the porous medium, as in Refs. [8–13], the molar mass
transfer rate, M, through the porous medium by diffusion is given by:
ΔC λ NM = [2 − ε − 0.3058(1 − ε)4 − 1.334(1-ε)8]/[ε
M ¼ A0 Deff ¼ ∫ λmax qðλÞdNðλÞ
L0 min
 
dT 1−α 1þdT −dN
¼ g q D ΔC β λmax dN
ð1 þ dT −dN Þ
where Deff is the effective diffusion coefficient, A0 is the representative
area and m(λ) is the molar mass transfer rate through a single capillary
of size λ [8–13]. The effective diffusion coefficient is then given as a
function of fractal dimensions dN and dT as:
 
1−α 1þdT −dN
Deff ¼ g q D βdT þ1 dN ð14Þ
ð1 þ dT −dN Þ
where gq = π/4.
The change in effective diffusivity as a function of saturation (change
in porosity) is presented in Fig. 5, where the fractal model is compared
to available models in the literature. A commonly used relationship to
describe changes in Deff as a function of porosity is Deff = ε1.5D, referred
to as Bruggeman equation [15]. Other models describe change in diffu-
sivity as, Deff = D/NM, where NM is the MacMullin number, a function of
porosity [17,18]. The shaded area in Fig. 5 represents region between
the upper and lower bounds formed by the values of Deff as calculated
using the MacMullin numbers given in Table 1. The solid line in Fig. 5
denotes the effective diffusivity as calculated using the Bruggeman
equation. The dashed line represents the results obtained using
ð12Þ Eq. (14), where the fractal dimensions are function of porosity (equiva-
lently, saturation) as given by Eqs. (5) and (12). The chain-dashed line
in Fig. 5 denotes the results calculated from Eq. (14) using the fractal di-
mensions obtained from image analysis of pore structures with simulat-
ed deposition as seen in Fig. 3. It is noted from Fig. 5 that the trends
described by dynamic fractal model [Eq. (14)] and Deff = ε1.5D are sim-
ilar, and show a decrease in Deff with decrease in porosity, which is
equivalent to increase in saturation. It can also be seen that the predic-
tions by the fractal model, using the values obtained through image
analysis (chain-dashed line) and those given by the dynamic fractal
model (dashed line) lie within the bounds in the literature (shaded
area), confirming the validity of a fractal description of the pore struc-
ture, and that the dynamic fractal model can be effectively used to pre-
dict transport properties for evolving porous media.
The present model, based on uniform saturation works well for cases
of low saturation, where there are no significant changes to the flow
path. A more comprehensive description may be developed by, relating
the deposition, pore size distribution and pore networking, such that dT
has different variations for range of saturation values. A pore network
model for random three-dimensional geometry, coupled with image
analysis can provide further insights and can be studied as a part of fu-
ture work. Also, the effects of multiphase flow can be characterized
using the above formulation.
4. Conclusions
A dynamic fractal model was presented for describing dynamically
evolving porous media as function of saturation. The model closely re-
sembles the values obtained through image analysis for small values
of saturation. The dynamic fractal model was used to predict the chang-
es in diffusion coefficient as a function of saturation. The model provides
an effective approach to predicting the properties of porous media with
evolving microstructures encountered in many fields.
Table 1
MacMullin number as a function of porosity for various geometries, arrangement and size
Refs. [17,18].
Label Expression
I NM = [(5 − ε)(3 + ε)]/[8(1 + ε)ε]
II NM = [(3 − ε)(43 + 0.409(1 − ε)7/3)
− 1.315(1 − ε)10/3]/[2ε(43 + 0.409(1 − ε)7/3) − 1.315(1 − ε)10/3]
III
− 0.3058(1 − ε)4 − 1.334(1 − ε)8]
IV NM = [2 − ε − 0.3058(1 − ε)4–1.334(1 − ε)8]/[ε − 0.3058(1 − ε)4
ð13Þ − 1.334(1 − ε)8]
 A. Verma, R. Pitchumani / International Communications in Heat and Mass Transfer 81 (2017) 51–55
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