Acta Mech

https://doi.org/10.1007/s00707-019-02470-3

O R I G I NA L PA P E R

M. K. Bourbatache · M. Hellou · F. Lominé

Two-scale analysis of the permeability of 3D periodic

granular and fibrous media

Received: 25 October 2018 / Revised: 7 June 2019

© Springer-Verlag GmbH Austria, part of Springer Nature 2019

Abstract In this paper, a numerical study of slow flow through a filter viewed as a porous medium made of
arrays of cubic solid particles or solid fibers of square cross section is considered. A double-scale asymptotic
method is used to determine a system of equations that are then solved numerically to calculate the permeability.
Simulations are made at the REV scale, and macroscopic properties are deduced. At the microscale, three
arrangements (simple cubic, body-centered cubic and face-centered cubic) are analyzed. A parametric study
is carried out, for both granular and fibrous cases, showing the porosity evolution with the size ratio between
the solid particles and the periodic cell. At the macroscopic scale, the interest of this analysis is to compute the
Darcy’s permeability of such arrays as a function of the porosity and the packing characteristics. Results are
given over the full porosity range for SC, BCC and FCC arrays. On the other side, the microscopic analysis
shows the influence of particle or fiber arrangement and size on the fluid velocity and the pressure field inside
the porous structure.

1 Introduction

Transport phenomena in porous media are essential in various scientific and engineering fields, while transport
properties such as permeability depend on the microstructure of the porous media. For this reason, an in-depth
understanding of the relationship between the pressure drop, flow rate, packing characteristics and solid volume
fraction is needed. In this objective, several studies of the viscous flow in a porous medium modeled by ordered
packing of solid particles or fibers have been realized.
As presented by several authors [44,45,48], fibrous porous media can be classified in three categories: 1D,
2D and 3D structures. For 1D and 2D structures, the solid particles are characterized by a significant dimension
in front of the two others. Thus, they are called fibrous media. The 1D configuration is made up of parallel
rods or parallel fibers. The 2D structure consists on fiber axes located on planes parallel to each other. The
distribution of the fibers on these planes can be ordered or random. For 3D structures, we can distinguish two
categories: fibrous and granular materials.
Several studies have been devoted to developing predictive models for the permeability of porous media.
For creeping flow at the pore scale, the permeability depends on the microstructure of the medium as has been
stated by numerous papers among which we can mention [25,30,36,43,45,52,54,57]. Interested readers can
consult [26,33] for a review. Most of these papers present correlations between permeability and porosity for
each microstructure. The common result of these studies is that for large porosity, the correlations are close to
each other whatever the shape of the particles and the configuration of their packing are. Moreover, the results
in this case fit well with Kozeny–Carman correlation. However, for porosity less than 0.4 [24], the permeability
depends on the shape of the particles and their arrangement which has an incidence on the pathway characterized

M. K. Bourbatache (B) · M. Hellou · F. Lominé

Laboratoire de Génie Civil et Génie Mécanique, INSA de Rennes, Rennes, France
E-mail: mohamed-khaled.bourbatache@insa-rennes.fr
 M. K. Bourbatache et al.

by the formation factor represented by the ratio of tortuosity (measure of indirect path as the fluid passes along a
porous medium) and porosity (F = τ/ϕ) [11]. Theses results have been confirmed by experiments [29,37,55].
Cho and Jeong [10] indicated that the permeability depends on the porosity more than the fiber shape; some
authors confirm this fact for large porosity. However, for low porosity, the permeability depends also on the
shape of the solid particles and particularly for fibrous material [28]. The 1D configuration has been widely
studied. It frequently employs fibers of constant cross section set periodically according generally to a square
or hexagonal array. Several authors [16,21–24,32,39,52], and recently Tamayol and Bahrami [45] used models
of cylindrical rods laid out in square and hexagonal meshes and calculated the permeability versus the solid
concentration. Moreover, some asymptotic studies were conducted with lubrication theory for the case of high
solid concentration [16,39]. Tamayol and Bahrami [44] conducted an analytical study of the permeability of
1D fibrous media made of cylinders arranged in square and hexagonal lattices. They assumed a parabolic
profile for the velocity and used boundary conditions as non-slip conditions on the solid surface and a special
border velocity condition on the periodic boundary. Despite assuming a parabolic velocity profile and no-
slip boundary condition on a solid surface, the results of this analytical model present good agreement with
numerical results for normal flow to the porous medium of porosity greater than 0.4. For ϕ < 0.4, a gap
between analytical and numerical results is observed. Hellou et al. [24] carried out a parametric study on a
medium made of cylindrical rods laid out in a triangular lattice. They present two correlations of permeability
versus porosity, for ϕ ≥ 0.4 and ϕ < 0.4, respectively.
The flow past 2D configurations has been studied mainly for applications in manufacturing of composite
materials with resin transfer molding and textiles reinforcement [3,35,37,50]. From a fundamental point of
view, Tamayol et al. [45,46] have investigated ordered 2D fibrous media with scale analysis technique. They
derived correlations for the permeability as K = Cβδmin 2 τ where C is a constant, β is the ratio of the minimum
to the total frontal areas, δ represents a scale length, and τ the tortuosity.
Unlike the one- and two-dimensional medium, the three-dimensional porous medium is less studied.
Contrary to random structures of porous media, few studies have been devoted to ordered structures. For
granular materials, we cite the pioneering work of Sangani and Acrivos [39,40], who investigated ordered
porous media made with spherical particles assembled on cubic lattices according to the models SC (simple
cubic), BCC (body-centered cubic) and FCC (face-centered cubic). They solved the Stokes equation with the
boundary integral method and calculated the drag force on the spheres belonging to a lattice. By equating this
force with the one given by Darcy’s law, they calculated the permeability as a function of the solid concentration.
Later, some authors considered this kind of porous media with various resolution methods. For fibrous media,
mainly limited to fibers of circular cross section, we can cite [10,25,45,48]. The 3D structures were for a
long time considered as linear superposition of the results of two-dimensional lattices parallel and normal to
the flow direction. Jackson and James [29] estimate the permeability of a cubic lattice of cylindrical fibers
with this method. The work of Higdon and Ford [25] is the first in which genuine 3D calculations have been
performed. They considered circular fibers assembled in cubic lattices (SC, BCC and FCC) using a spectral
method. Tamayol and Bahrami [45] considered simple cubic 3D arrays of cylindrical fibers. They derived an
analytical correlation using a scale analysis technique.
Previous studies emphasized that the permeability is influenced by the microstructure of the medium
especially when the porosity is low. The aim of this paper is to contribute to a better understanding of how
the permeability is related to porosity and help to characterize the influence of the microstructure of 3D
granular ordered porous media and 3D fibrous ordered media. More specifically, we are interested here in cubic
solid particles and fibers with square cross sections. With recent progress in fiber manufacturing technology,
the production of synthetic fibers with various cross sections is now viable [53]. Nevertheless, there are
very few studies on permeability determination with non-circular fibers on more specifically on square cross
section fibers. Most of them were conducted to characterize pressure drop and filter capture efficiency of
filters [7,9,15,17,18,34,41,52,53,56]. On the other side, few were interested in the permeability determination
with fibers arrangement [19] and even less in 3D configurations.
This paper aims to determine the evolution of permeability of 3D porous microstructures (3D cubic granular
or 3D fibrous with square section) as a function of porosity, which itself depends on other characteristics such
as particle size or specific surface area. This work, although restrained to a periodic model, is devoted to an
analysis of the assemblage of cubic particles in the classic configurations SC, BCC and FCC for the granular
medium and the fibrous medium.
A double-scale asymptotic homogenization of Stokes problem is performed. The macroscopic obtained
model is the classical Darcy’s law [1,2,6,38]. The permeability tensor is determined by solving a local system
of equations on the considered periodic unit cells (3D granular or 3D fibrous). In addition, the geometrical
Two-scale analysis of the permeability of 3D periodic granular and fibrous media

Fig. 1 Macroscopic scale with the corresponding periodic elementary cell

tortuosity tensor is calculated on the same 3D unit cell in order to highlight the influence of the microstructure
on the permeability tensor. After a brief presentation of the double-scale asymptotic method applied to the
Stokes problem in Sect. 2, the numerical results obtained for granular and fibrous porous media are presented
in Sect. 3. In Sect. 4, the comparison between them is performed. Finally, in Sect. 5, we draw conclusions.

2 Double-scale asymptotic method

2.1 Asymptotic expansions

Let us consider that at the macroscopic scale, the porous medium occupies a domain S of the space IR3 . The
microstructure of S is assumed to be constituted of a periodic elementary cell Ω = Ωs ∪ Ωf , composed of
fluid phase Ωf and solid phase Ωs (see Fig. 1). The boundary of Ω is denoted Γ and is composed of smooth
solid-fluid interface Γsf and of the fluid-fluid boundary Γff between the neighboring cells. Let x = (x1 , x2 , x3 )
be the macroscopic variable (slow variable) and y = (y1 , y2 , y3 ) be the microscopic one (fast variable).
In order to be representative of the microstructure and consistent with the homogenization procedure,
the characteristic length l of the elementary cell must be smaller than the macroscopic length L. This is an
homogenizability condition of the problem called also the condition of separation of scales. In the case of a
medium with periodic microstructure, the elementary cell represents a kind of REV [2] and the separation of
scales requires that
l
ε =  1,
L
where ε denotes the scale separation parameter.
We assume creeping flow in which the cell Reynolds number is

lVr εL Vr
Rel = = = O (ε)
νr νr
with νr and Vr denoting the reference kinematic viscosity and the reference velocity field of the fluid, respec-
tively1 . In these conditions, the steady-state flow obeys the Stokes equation written in dimensionless form
as

μΔv − QL ∇ p = 0 in Ωf , (1)
∇.
∇.v = 0 in Ωf , (2)

associated with the no-slip boundary condition applied on the solid-fluid interface Γsf :

v=0 on Γsf , (3)

where p is the dimensionless pressure, v is the dimensionless velocity vector and μ is the dimensionless
dynamic viscosity of the fluid.
1 The dimensional quantities with subscript (r ) are the reference ones used to normalize the dimensional Stokes equation.
 M. K. Bourbatache et al.

The dimensionless number QL is given by:

pr
QL = L
μr Vr
.
L2
Let us evaluate the order of magnitude of the dimensionless number QL . In porous media, the flow is driven
by a macroscopic pressure gradient. At the same time, the velocity varies in pores with characteristic length l
and where the viscous effects occur, which gives us:
 
pr μr Vr
=O .
L l2
The order of magnitude of the dimensionless number QL is given by:
⎛ ⎞
pr
∇ p|
|∇ 
QL = = O ⎝ 2 L ⎠ = O ε−2 .
|μΔv| ε μ V
r r
l2

The classical procedure of periodic homogenization consists in seeking the unknowns p and v of the problem
as a function depending on the macroscopic variable x and microscopic variable y considered as separated
variables. We consider asymptotic expansions of p and v in the following form:
p = p 0 (x, y) + εp 1 (x, y) + ε2 p 2 (x, y) + · · · ,
(4)
v =v0 (x, y) + εv1 (x, y) + ε2 v2 (x, y) + · · · ,
where p m and vm are y-periodic. Substituting the asymptotic expansion (4) into the dimensionless equations.
(1)–(3) and canceling the factors of εm lead to the coupled problem. Furthermore, the homogenization of the
Stokes problem (1)–(3) leads to the following system composed of the Darcy’s equation and of the continuity
equation, respectively:

 K
V = v0 = − ∇x p 0 in S, (5)
μ


∇x . v0 = 0 in S, (6)

where · is the average over Ω defined as


1
· = ·dΩ (7)
|Ω| Ωf

and V denotes Darcy’s velocity which satisfies the equation of continuity (6) at the macroscale. The macroscopic
pressure gradient ∇x p 0 is the source term independent of the microscopic variable y. K denotes the intrinsic
permeability tensor. The Darcy’s velocity is equal to the average over Ω of the velocity at the first-order v0
solution of the boundary value problem at the microscale written as follows:
μΔ y v0 − ∇ y p 1 − ∇x p 0 = 0 in Ωf , (8)
∇ y .v = 0
0
in Ωf , (9)
1
p =0 in Ωf , (10)
v0 = 0 on Γsf , (11)
v , p 1 are y-periodic.
0
(12)
The components Ki j of the permeability tensor are expressed by

 
μ
Ki j = μ v0ij = v0i dΩ, (13)
|Ω| Ωf j

where v0ij is the jth component of the velocity field at principal order in direction ei (when ∇x p 0 = −ei )
where ei is the unit-vector of the orthonormal basis.
Two-scale analysis of the permeability of 3D periodic granular and fibrous media

The permeability tensor is positive and symmetric when the pores are connected in all spatial directions. For
more details on the homogenization procedure of the Stokes problem, one can refer to the pioneering works
of [2,6,27,38].
In what follows, we define the porosity ϕ of the elementary cell as
|Ωf |
ϕ= , (14)
|Ω|
the solid volume fraction as
|Ωs |
C= = 1 − ϕ, (15)
|Ω|
and the specific surface area as
|Γsf |
Sp = , (16)
|Ω|

2.2 Permeability and tortuosity

The aim of this section is the determination of the permeability tensor for periodic microstructures. We start by
solving numerically the boundary value problem (8)–(12) to determine the velocity vector vij in the direction
ei and the local pressure p 1 when the macroscopic pressure gradient −∇ ∇x p 0 is assumed constant and equal
to ei for each direction i. In a second step, the components of the permeability tensor are calculated by using
Eq. (13).
For the sake of simplicity, we adopt slightly modified notations. Thus, the velocity field at principal order
becomes v0 ≡ v and pressure at first order is changed to p 1 ≡ p.
Furthermore, the tortuosity tensor τ is determined by using the periodic homogenization procedure applied
to the molecular diffusion equation. We considerer that the diffusion coefficient Df is equal to one in the fluid
phase and zero in the solid one. The theoretical development for the determination of homogenized diffusion
tensor is not the aim of this work. The reader can refer to [1,2,4,5,14]. The periodic homogenization leads to
the macroscopic diffusion problem and the homogenized diffusion tensor Dhom = Df T. The tensor T which
links the tortuosity to porosity is defined as in [42]. Then, we have:
⎛ ⎞

ϕ ⎜ 1 ⎟
T = 2 = ϕ ⎝I + (n ⊗ χ ) dΓ ⎠ , (17)
τ | Ωf |
Γsf

where n is the unit outward vector normal of the solid-fluid interface Γsf , I is the unit tensor and ⊗ denotes the
tensor product. The vector χ is y-periodic and is the solution of the following local boundary value problem
of the considered elementary cells:
⎧ 
⎪
⎪ ∇ y . I + ∇ y χ = 0 in Ωf ,
⎪
⎪ I + ∇ y χ .nn = 0
⎪
⎨ on Γsf ,
χ (yy ) = χ (y
y + l) on Γff , (18)
⎪
⎪ 1
⎪
⎪ χ
χ  = χ dΩ = 0 in Ω .
⎪
⎩ |Ω|
f
Ωf

The vector χ depends solely on the microscopic variable y and mainly on the microscopic topology. However,
its average is null over the fluid phase Ωf .
The numerical resolution of Eqs. (8)–(12) is performed with a Comsol Multiphysics solver based on the finite
element method. We used the predefined partial derivative equation (PDE):
 
∇ . −α∇∇ ui = Fi in Ωf , (19)
∇ .ui = β in Ωf , (20)
u =0
i
on Γsf . (21)
 M. K. Bourbatache et al.

l=2d

2a

a 2a
l=2d

e3
e3
e2 e2 e1
e1
(a) SC granular (b) FCC granular

l=2d

2a

e3

e2 e1

(c) BCC granular

Fig. 2 Perspective view of SC, FCC and BCC lattice of cubic grains

where ui is the variable vector according to ei , and α and β are any function of the spatial coordinates. Fi
denotes the source vector. In our case, the system (8)–(12), implemented in COMSOL, is written as:

ui = vij ; α = μ; β = 0; Fi = ei − ∇ y p

In addition, periodic boundary conditions are imposed on the velocity and pressure fields. Finally, the determi-
nation of the permeability tensor components in post-processing requires the use of the mean operator of each
velocity component in the three directions. The boundary value problem (18) is solved by using the predefined
Laplace equation in Comsol Multiphysics. A tetrahedral mesh is used with a P2 − P1 Lagrange element for
velocity and pressure, respectively. An unstructured mesh is used, and the size of the tetrahedral elements is
fixed, by comparing the permeability variation of the spherical inclusion to the solution obtained by Zick and
Homsy [57]. The mesh is refined on the solid–fluid interface Γsf , and the size and number of element depends
on the porosity. For example in the case of BCC fibrous packing, the element size h ∈ [0.02, 0.07] and number
of elements Nbele = 257919 for ϕ = 0.98, and h ∈ [0.01, 0.05] and number of elements Nbele = 181415
for ϕ = 0.145.
Two-scale analysis of the permeability of 3D periodic granular and fibrous media

l=2d l=2d

2a

2a
e3 e3

e2 e2
e1 e1

(a) SC fibrous (b) FCC fibrous

l=2d

2a

e3
e2 e1
(c) BCC fibrous
Fig. 3 Perspective view of SC, FCC and BCC lattice of square cross section fibers

3 Application to 3D porous medium with cubic grains and square cross section fibers

3.1 Description of the 3D microstructures

We consider the steady creeping flow of a Newtonian fluid through a periodic cubic array of fixed cubes called
granular medium and a periodic cubic array of fixed fibers with square cross section called fibrous medium.
The grains and fibers are hereafter also called solid particles. The elementary cell, in which the solid particles
are set, is a cube of size l × l × l. As shown in Figs. 2 and 3, the microscopic scale is noted l = 2d.
The granular medium is composed with granular particles of cubic shape of size 2a. They are set in the
elementary cell and arranged according to the well-known configurations SC, FCC and BCC as shown in
Fig. 2.
The fibrous medium is composed of rectilinear fibers with square cross section 2a × 2a and length b. The
fibers are arranged along the edges of the cube for SC, along the face diagonals for FCC and along the cube
diagonals for BCC (Fig. 3).
Expressions of the solid concentration for the different packing configurations are given in Table 1 for
the granular medium and in Table 2 for the fibrous medium. Moreover, we have indicated the concentration
Cmax corresponding to the connectivity threshold of the fluid phase Ωf . For this last characteristic, overlap
 M. K. Bourbatache et al.

Table 1 Solid volume fraction for different granular microstructures. The concentration C is defined in the range of porosity for
which the fluid phase is connected

Microstructure SC FCC BCC

 3 a
 a 3  a 3 2 da ≤ 0.5 no overlap
C d 4 d  a 3 d 2a 3
2 d − d −1 0.5 ≤ da ≤ 1 withoverlap
0.5 no overlap
(a/d)max 1 0.49 1 with overlap
Cmax 1 0.47 1

Table 2 Solid volume fraction for different fibrous microstructures

Microstructure SC FCC BCC

√ √
b/l 1 2  3
 2  3 √  2 √   3 √  2 √  √   3
C 3 da − 2 da 6 2 da − 3 2 + 2 da 4 3 da − 3
2
10 + 3 3 da
(a/d)max 1 0.41 0.51
Cmax 1 0.72 0.85

of the solid particles is allowed until the connectivity between the pores is broken. We have also indicated
the value ( da )max corresponding to the connectivity threshold. For the fibrous medium, the configurations of
packing show intersection between fibers. This fact complicates the determination of the expression of the
solid fraction.
Let us now focus on the variation of the porosity of each array packing. Thus, Fig. 4a shows the variation
of the porosity of each granular microstructure as a function of the ratio da . The variation of the porosity of the
granular SC and BCC microstructures overlays almost all the domain of definition of porosity. However, the
granular FCC microstructure presents a connectivity threshold corresponding to ϕ 0.53 for da = 0.49. This
last microstructure presents almost the lowest porosity for the same ratio da .
Figure 4b shows the porosity variation of each fibrous microstructure versus the size of fibers 2a normalized
with the size of the elementary cell l = 2d according to the expressions presented in Table 2.
The SC fibrous packing presents the greatest porosity and the FCC the lowest one for the same ratio a/d.
Furthermore, the FCC and BCC packing present a connectivity threshold for the following values of porosity:
ϕFCC = 0.28 and ϕBCC = 0.15 corresponding to da = 0.41 and da = 0.51, respectively.

3.2 Viscous flow and permeability of granular media

The microstructures of granular media are symmetric according to the three directions e1 , e2 and e3 ; thus, the
determination of the permeability tensor requires the resolution of the boundary value problem in only one
spatial direction (v = v1 ). We obtain:
v = ue1 + ve2 + we3 ,
K 11 = K 22 = K 33 = μ u,
K 12 = K 13 = K 23 = μ v = μ w = 0.
According to the direction of the flow, Eqs. (8)–(12) will be solved in the direction e1 , by imposing the boundary
conditions expressed by Eq. (3) on all the surfaces of the inclusions which represent the interface solid-fluid
Γsf and velocity and pressure periodic boundary conditions on the interface fluid–fluid Γff . In addition, the
pressure gradient is applied in the direction e1 with ∇x P 0 = −e1 .
As a result, the components of the velocity vector and pressure are plotted for the BCC microstructure with
ϕ = 0.965 in Fig. 5. These different quantities are normalized with respect to their maximum values. This
figure highlights some properties:
– u is symmetric with respect to e1 e2 , e1 e3 and e2 e3 planes, with the greatest magnitude located between the
inclusions.
Two-scale analysis of the permeability of 3D periodic granular and fibrous media

1 SC
FCC
BCC
0.9
0.8 Overlapping of solid phase BCC

0.7
0.6
0.5

ϕ
Threshold of connectivity FCC

0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
a/d
(a) Granular media
1
SC
0.9 FCC
BCC
0.8
0.7
0.6
0.5
ϕ

0.4
0.3 Threshold of connectivity FCC

0.2
Threshold of connectivity BCC e 1
0.1
0
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
a/d
(b) Fibrous media
a
Fig. 4 Variation of porosity versus ratio d for granular and fibrous microstructures

– v is antisymmetric with respect to e1 e3 , e2 e3 and symmetric with respect to e1 e2 , and this leads to null
average of v over the domain Ω (v = 0), therefore K 12 = 0.
– w is antisymmetric with respect to e1 e2 , e2 e3 and symmetric with respect to e1 e3 , and this leads to null
average of w over the domain Ω (w = 0), therefore K 13 = 0.
– p is symmetric with respect to e1 e2 , e1 e3 and antisymmetric with respect to e2 e3 , which leads to
( p = 0).

These properties are also valid for the SC and FCC granular microstructures because of the symmetry of
the elementary cell. The permeability tensor in these cases is isotropic, K = K I, where I is the unity tensor.
The variation of the dimensionless permeability as a function of porosity of the different granular
microstructures is plotted in Fig. 6.
The permeability was made dimensionless relatively to the area of the section of the cubic particles (2a)2 .
The dimensionless permeability K /4a 2 increases obviously with increasing porosity. The values of the dimen-
sionless permeability of the three assemblage configurations are close in the range 0.75−0.99 of porosity. It can
be observed that the dimensionless permeability of the FCC packing decreases significantly for ϕ < 0.75 and
becomes the lowest compared to SC and BCC of the three packings; its minimal value vanishes for ϕ = 0.49
which corresponds to the connectivity threshold of the fluid phase. For ϕ < 0.5, the SC microstructure
permeability is the lowest one compared to BCC.
Now, we are interested in the calculation of the tortuosity tensor. As for the permeability tensor, in the
case of the granular microstructure with cubic inclusion, the tortuosity tensor is isotropic. To determine the
 M. K. Bourbatache et al.

(a) u (b) v.

(c) w. (d) p.
Fig. 5 Contours of velocity components and pressure for BCC microstructure of granular medium for porosity ϕ = 0.965 and
∇x p 0 = −e1

tortuosity, we solve the boundary value problem (18) and Eq. (17) for the elementary cells. Figure 7 presents
the variation of tortuosity for the three arrays of cubes versus porosity. In addition, the numerical values of
porosity ϕ, specific area Sp , tortuosity τ and dimensionless permeability K /(4a 2 ) are summarized in Table 3.
The numerical procedure is first validated by comparison of the variation of tortuosity versus porosity in the
case of SC with the numerical results obtained by Valdes et al in [49].
From Fig. 7, we observe that when the porosity is large (here ϕ > 0.8), the value of the tortuosity is close
to 1 and is independent of the microstructure. For ϕ < 0.8, the SC model presents the lowest tortuosity since
the particles are aligned along the flow direction. For the FCC model, the tortuosity increases sharply as the
connectivity threshold approaches.
However, for the same ratio a/d we observe in Table 3 that the dimensionless permeability of the FCC pack-

ing is the lowest compared to the permeability of BCC and SC K FCC /(4a 2 ) < K BCC /(4a 2 ) < K SC /(4a 2 ) .
This can be explained by the fact that the FCC packing has the lowest value of porosity (see Fig. 4a) and the
greatest value of tortuosity (τSC < τBCC < τFCC ) for fixed ratio a/d.
Two-scale analysis of the permeability of 3D periodic granular and fibrous media

4 SC
10 FCC
BCC
102

100

K/(4a )
10 −2

2
−4
10
−6
10

10 −8

10 −10
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
ϕ
Fig. 6 Dimensionless permeability of granular microstructures versus porosity

1.8
SC
1.7 FCC
BCC
1.6

1.5

1.4
τ

1.3

1.2

1.1

1
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
ϕ
Fig. 7 Tortuosity τ versus porosity ϕ for different granular microstructures

Table 3 Numerical values of porosity ϕ, specific area Sp [m−1 ], tortuosity τ and dimensionless permeability K /(4a 2 ) versus the
size of the cubic inclusions a/d, for the different microstructures SC, FCC and BCC

a/d ϕ Sp τ K /(4a 2 )
Granular SC
0.1 0.9989 0.06 1.0003 63.771
0.3 0.9729 0.54 1.0085 1.368
0.5 0.8749 1.5 1.0387 0.132
0.7 0.6569 2.94 1.0974 0.012
0.9 0.2709 4.86 1.1771 2.2 × 10−4
Granular FCC
0.1 0.9959 0.2399 1.0012 13.684
0.2 0.9679 0.9599 1.0099 1.039
0.3 0.8919 2.1599 1.0345 0.1489
0.4 0.74399 3.84 1.0888 0.0189
0.49 0.5294 5.7624 1.3036 2.1 × 10−4
Granular BCC
0.1 0.9979 0.1199 1.0006 29.846
0.3 0.9459 1.0799 1.0168 0.4849
0.5 0.7499 2.9999 1.0876 0.0264
0.7 0.3779 3.9599 1.3188 1.43 × 10−3
0.9 0.0539 2.04 1.5919 8 × 10−6
 M. K. Bourbatache et al.

e3 e1 e1

e2 e3 e2

(a) e2 e3 (b) e1 e3 (c) e1 e2

Fig. 8 Projection of the solid phase of the BCC model according to different planes

3.3 Viscous flow and permeability of fibrous media

The symmetry of SC and FCC fibrous microstructures imply that their steady-state permeability tensor is
isotropic, K = K I, obtained by solving the problem (8)–(12) in one spatial direction (v = v1 ): we thus have:
v = ue1 + ve2 + we3 ,
K 11 = K 22 = K 33 = μ u ,
K 12 = K 13 = K 23 = μ v = μ w = 0.
Unlike the SC and FCC packing, the permeability tensor of the BCC is not isotropic:
KBCC = K 11 (e1 ⊗ e1 + e2 ⊗ e2 ) + K 33 (e3 ⊗ e3 ) ,

K 11 = K 22 = μ u 1 ,

K 33 = μ w 3 .
Indeed, Fig. 8, presenting the projection of the fibers on the planes (e1 e2 ), (e1 e3 ), (e2 e3 ) shows that the
geometry viewed by the flow in direction e3 (perpendicular to Fig. 8c) is different in comparison with directions
e1 and e2 , perpendicular to Fig. 8a, b, respectively.
In this case, problem (8)–(12) is solved in the direction e1 (similar to the direction e2 ) and in direction e3
in order to determine permeabilities K 11 and K 33 , respectively.
Figure 9 shows the velocity components and pressure of the BCC microstructure. All quantities are nor-
malized with respect to their maximum value. In the case of the considered microstructures, the components of
the vector2 v1 = u 1 e1 +v 1 e2 +w 1 e3 are plotted in Figs. 9a–c, and those of the vector v3 = u 3 e1 +v 3 e2 +w 3 e3
are plotted in Figs. 9e–g. Figures 9d, h shows the pressure distribution in direction e1 and e3 , respectively. As
in the granular case, similar observations about symmetry of the velocity and pressure fields are noted. It is
worth to note that all the components of the velocity vector and pressure are y-periodic.
In Fig. 10, we plot the variation of the dimensionless permeability K /(4a 2 ) as a function of porosity for
the three considered packings SC, FCC and BCC. We notice obviously that the dimensionless permeability
increases as the porosity increases for all microstructures. In the case of the anisotropic BCC packing, the
permeability components K 11 /(4a 2 ) and K 33 /(4a 2 ) are almost equal for porosity greater than 0.8. However,
for ϕ < 0.8, the gap increases when the porosity decreases. From this, the dimensionless permeability in
direction e3 is the largest one when comparing to the dimensionless permeability in direction e1 . It can be
pointed out that for the porosity ϕ > 0.6, the difference between dimensionless permeabilities of fibrous
packing is not significant. For the porosity ϕ < 0.6, we remark that the dimensionless
 permeability of the FCC
packing is the lowest one and of the BCC packing in direction e3 is the larger one K FCC /(4a 2 ) < K BCC11 /(4a 2 )

< K SC /(4a 2 ) < K BCC33 /(4a 2 ) .
As in the case of the granular arrangement, we solve the boundary value problem (18) in order to determine
the tortuosity tensor through Eq. (17) for the considered fibrous arrays of Fig. 3. The tortuosity tensor in the
2 v2 is identical to v1 by permutation of direction 1 to 2.
Two-scale analysis of the permeability of 3D periodic granular and fibrous media

(a) u1 (b) v1 (c) w1 (d) p1

(e) u3 (f) v3 (g) w3 (h) p3

Fig. 9 Velocity components and pressure for BCC microstructure of fibrous medium

10 4
SC
FCC
2 BCC e1
10
BCC e3
0
10

−2
10
K/(4a 2 )

−4
10

10 −6

10 −8

10 −10
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
ϕ
Fig. 10 Permeability as a function of porosity for fibrous microstructures

case of SC and FCC arrangements is isotropic, τ = τ I. However, for the BCC packing, the tortuosity tensor
is:

τBCC = τ11 (e1 ⊗ e1 + e2 ⊗ e2 ) + τ33 (e3 ⊗ e3 ) ,

where τ11 and τ33 represent the tortuosity in direction e1 and e3 , respectively.
Figure 11 shows the variation of tortuosity versus porosity for the three fibrous arrangements. It should
be noted that the tortuosity of the considered packings is relatively the same when the porosity is ϕ > 0.6.
In this case, the influence of tortuosity is secondary on the variation of the dimensionless
 permeability. When
the porosity is less than 0.6, the tortuosity of the FCC arrangement is the largest τBCC33 < τSC < τBCC11
< τFCC ) which explains the difference of variation of dimensionless permeability versus porosity of Fig. 10.
In addition, Table 4 presents the numerical values of the porosity, specific area, tortuosity and dimensionless
permeability for several values of the ratio a/d.
 M. K. Bourbatache et al.

6
SC
5.5 FCC
BCC e1
5 BCC e3

4.5
4

τ
3.5
3
2.5
2
1.5
1
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
ϕ
Fig. 11 Tortuosity τ versus porosity ϕ for different fibrous microstructures

Table 4 Numerical values of porosity ϕ, specific area Sp [m−1 ], tortuosity τ and dimensionless permeability K /(4a 2 ) versus the
size of the fibers a/d, for the different microstructures SC, FCC and BCC

a/d ϕ Sp τ K /(4a 2 )
Fibrous SC
0.1 0.9719 1.0799 1.0111 4.8662
0.2 0.8959 1.9199 1.0451 0.6204
0.3 0.7839 2.5199 1.0999 0.1438
0.4 0.6479 2.8799 1.1715 0.0402
0.5 0.4999 2.9999 1.2561 0.0116
0.6 0.3519 2.88 1.3481 3.1 × 10−3
0.7 0.2159 2.5199 1.4428 6.8 × 10−4
0.8 0.1039 1.9199 1.5393 9.9 × 10−5
0.9 0.0280 1.0799 1.6326 4.5 × 10−6
a/d ϕ Sp τ K /(4a 2 )
Fibrous FCC
0.1 0.9253 2.7795 1.0338 1.1118
0.15 0.8436 3.7084 1.0782 0.2759
0.2 0.7425 4.3299 1.1424 0.0788
0.25 0.6297 4.6442 1.2359 0.0222
0.3 0.5128 4.6513 1.3823 5.1 × 10−3
0.35 0.3997 4.3510 1.6849 6.8 × 10−4
0.38 0.3367 4.0234 2.1482 9 × 10−5
0.4 0.2978 3.7435 3.1880 7 × 10−6
0.41 0.2795 3.5851 5.7171 1 × 10−7
a/d ϕ Sp τ11 τ33 K 11 /(4a 2 ) K 33 /(4a 2 )
Fibrous BCC
0.1 0.9378 2.3414 1.0276 1.027 1.4253 1.5227
0.15 0.8682 3.1898 1.0632 1.0609 0.4001 0.41832
0.2 0.7802 3.8233 1.1136 1.1072 0.1371 0.1469
0.25 0.6789 4.2418 1.1797 1.1635 0.0507 0.0576
0.3 0.5698 4.4455 1.2644 1.225 0.0186 0.0237
0.35 0.4584 4.4343 1.3755 1.2851 6.38 × 10−3 9.84 × 10−3
0.4 0.3499 4.2081 1.5395 1.3346 1.85 × 10−3 3.98 × 10−3
0.45 0.2498 3.7670 1.8567 1.3667 3.76 × 10−4 1.52 × 10−3
0.51 0.1482 2.9541 4.6568 1.3811 5 × 10−6 4.1 × 10−4
Two-scale analysis of the permeability of 3D periodic granular and fibrous media

4 Discussion

The aim of this section is to give an overview and comparison between the granular and fibrous microstructures,
permeability determined in Sects. 3.2 and 3.3. Thus, in Fig. 12b we compare the variation of the dimensionless
permeability K /(4a 2 ) versus porosity for the granular and fibrous microstructures. It can be pointed out that
the dimensionless permeability K /(4a 2 ) of the granular packing is slightly lower compared to the fibrous one
for porosity ϕ > 0.7. In this range of porosity, the dimensionless permeability is independent of the shape
whether for granular or fibrous packing. For porosity ϕ < 0.7, globally the previous ascertainment is valid,
with few exceptions. For example, the FCC granular medium presents the lowest value of permeability for
porosity in vicinity of the threshold of fluid phase connectivity; this is also valid for the FCC fibrous medium.
It is important to underscore that the permeabilities of SC fibrous and BCC fibrous in direction e3 are closer.
All these observations can be explained by the variation of tortuosity and specific area plotted, respectively,
in Figs. 12a, c. Indeed, the steady-state permeability is function of porosity, tortuosity and specific area. It
increases with porosity and decreases with tortuosity and specific surface area. The tortuosity of fibrous and
granular packing are closer for porosity ϕ > 0.7; in this range of porosity the effect of tortuosity on the dimen-
sionless permeability is negligible. The difference between fibrous and granular dimensionless permeability
is mainly due to the specific area. Indeed, we observe in Fig. 12c and for the same range of porosity that the
fibrous specific area is greater when compared to the granular one. This is in good agreement with the variation
of permeability of Fig. 12b.
For porosity ϕ < 0.7, we observe in Fig. 12a that tortuosity reaches the maximum value for packing with
threshold of fluid phase connectivity as FCC granular, FCC fibrous and BCC fibrous in direction e1 . This
corresponds to the minimum value of dimensionless permeability. We observe also that the dimensionless
permeability of the SC granular is the lowest one (without taking into account the packing with threshold of
connectivity) even if this packing presents the lowest tortuosity. This seemingly contradictory result is actually
due to the specific area which is the greater one for SC granular (see Fig. 12c and Tables 3, 4). Since for array
of spheres of radius a the permeability in the dilute medium is known to behave as 2a 2 /(9(1 − ϕ)), we plotted
in Fig. 13 the evolution of dimensionless permeability K (1 − ϕ)/(4a 2 ) with porosity for both granular and
fibrous media with square cross section. Literature results for granular spheres of Zick and Homsy [57] and
fibers with circular cross section of Higdon and Ford [25] are also represented. Figure 13 illustrates that over a
wide range of porosity (0 − −0.75), the permeability depends on the category of medium (granular or fibrous)
as well as on the assembly configuration and the shape of the constituent particles of this medium. When the
porosity is greater than 0.75, this figure clearly shows that the influence of the shape and the disposition of
the particles is negligible. On the other hand, with high porosity, the sets of curves corresponding to granular
and fibrous media are distinct and show that, in the condition of dilute medium, the fibrous medium is more
permeable than the granular medium.
As previously explained, for Fig. 12, specific surface area Sp is an important characteristic of porous  
microstructure that influences its permeability. Kozeny–Carman [8,31] relation predicts that K ∼ ϕ 3 / cSp2
in an intermediate porosity range (ϕ < 0.7). In the Kozeny–Carman relation, c is a constant which is known
to be near 5 [20] for spheres. To investigate particle shape effect on this constant, Fig. 14 shows dependency
of ϕ 3 /(K Sp2 ) with porosity. We observe clearly that the Kozeny–Carman relation can be used to estimate the
permeability for porosity in the range (0.7 − −0.9). However, if we don’t take into account the arrangements
which present connectivity threshold, the parameter c is almost constant and close to the value 5 in a relative
larger porosity range.

5 Conclusion

In this work, we have studied the effect of the 3D squared fibers section on the intrinsic permeability and
compared it to the case of cubic 3D granular arrangement. Three kinds of unit cells are investigated SC, FCC
and BCC. The determination of the permeability tensor is based on the resolution of the microscopic boundary
value problem obtained by asymptotic homogenization of the Stokes equation (creeping flow Rel = O (ε)).
The resolution of the boundary value problem leads to the local velocity and pressure fields from which the
permeability tensor is calculated. Furthermore, geometric tortuosity tensor is calculated on the same 3D packing
by solving a microscopic problem obtained by the asymptotic homogenization of the diffusion equation (Fick’s
law). The calculation of tortuosity allowed us to understand some particular cases.
 M. K. Bourbatache et al.

6
SC Granular
5.5 FCC Granular
BCC Granular
5 SC Fibrous
FCC Fibrous
4.5 BCC e1 Fibrous
BCC e3 Fibrous
4

τ
3.5
3
2.5
2
1.5
1
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
ϕ
(a) Variation of tortuosity versus porosity

104

102

100
K/(4a )
2

10 −2

10 −4
SC Granular
FCC Granular
10 −6 BCC Granular
SC Fibrous
10
−8 FCC Fibrous
BCC e1 Fibrous
−10
BCC e3 Fibrous
10
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
ϕ
(b) Dimensional permeability versus porosity ϕ.
6
SC Granular
FCC Granular
5 BCC Granular
SC Fibrous
FCC Fibrous
4 BCC Fibrous
a.S p

0
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
ϕ
(c) Specific area S p versus porosity ϕ.
Fig. 12 Comparison between granular and fibrous results

We have presented the results of permeability as a function of porosity. It is obvious that for all arrangements
the permeability decreases with decreasing porosity. Furthermore, we have scaled the permeability in different
ways and discussed the results. More specifically, the normalization with particle diameter shows that for
porosity greater than 0.75, the curves of permeability versus porosity form two distinct groups depending
on whether the medium is fibrous or granular. On other hand, the normalization by ϕ 3 /Sp2 shows that the
Kozeny–Carman relation can be used to estimate permeability for both granular and fibrous arrangements in
the intermediate range of porosity (0.7 − 0.9). For ϕ < 0.7, this correlation is valid only for arrangement
without threshold connectivity. The structure of the flow inside the medium is also influenced by porosity and
Two-scale analysis of the permeability of 3D periodic granular and fibrous media

10 0

10 −2

−4

K(1− ϕ)/4a2
10

10 −6 SC Granular
FCC Granular
BCC Granular
SC Zick
FCC Zick
BCC Zick
10 −8 SC Fibrous
FCC Fibrous
BCC e1 Fibrous
BCC e3 Fibrous
SC Higdon
FCC Higdon
BCC Higdon
−10
10
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
ϕ
Fig. 13 Dimensionless permeability K (1 − ϕ)/(4a 2 ) evolution with porosity for granular cases and fibrous cases with square
cross section. Results for granular cases with spheres [57] and cylinder fibrous cases [25] are also represented

10 3 SC Granular
FCC Granular
BCC Granular
SC Zick
FCC Zick
BCC Zick
SC Higdon
FCC Higdon
BCC Higdon
SC Fibrous
2 FCC Fibrous
10 BCC e1 Fibrous
BCC e3 Fibrous
ϕ /(KS p )
3 2

10 1

0
10
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
ϕ

Fig. 14 ϕ 3 /(K Sp2 ) evolution with porosity ϕ. This ratio represents the constant appearing in Kozeny–Carman relation and which
is known to be near 5 for spheres [20]

the arrangement of particles. Thus, for low porosity, except FCC granular, we observe the development of
recirculation between the particles characterized by closed pathlines of the fluid. This result is in agreement
with Davis et al. [13], Taneda [47], Hellou et al. [24], Wang [51] who also observed the development of Stokes
eddies.
Similarly to the work of Crevacore et al. [12], it can be assumed that such recirculation would induce
tailing effects in the case of mass transport. The structured models studied have the advantage of allowing
parametric studies. Moreover their application is important for the design of artificial structures adapted to
different processes. The particular case of fibrous structures of square section can be used to design efficient
filters and also fluid storage structures useful in civil engineering.

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