Effective Diffusivity in Porous Materials

Application ID: 978


Transport through porous structures is usually treated using simplified homogeneous models with effective transport properties. This is in most cases a necessity, since the typical dimensions of the pores and particles making up the porous structure are several orders of magnitude smaller than the size of the domain that is to be modeled.

This model introduces the concept of effective diffusivity in porous media by comparing the transport through an artificial porous structure described in a detailed model with a simplified homogeneous porous media approach using effective transport properties.

The model consists of two parts. In the first part, we create the model with a detailed geometry. In the second part, we define a homogeneous model for porous media using an effective diffusivity calculated using the detailed model from the first part.

This model example illustrates applications of this type that would nominally be built using the following products: