Modeling water imbibition into coated and uncoated papers

Abstract

Modeling morphological and hydraulic properties of thin porous media, such as filter layers and papers is highly relevant to various industries. In our previous studies, the X-ray tomography and FIB-SEM methods were applied to capture micro- and nano-scale pores in uncoated paper and coated layer, respectively. Here, the reconstructed pore structures were used to investigate two-phase water imbibition in these porous media. The obtained pore size distributions showed a log-normal probability density function. Such a distribution, together with concepts from critical path analysis and percolation theory, was applied to calculate relative permeability over a wide range of water saturations. Comparison with pore-scale numerical simulations showed the capability of this method to estimate water relative permeability for coated and uncoated papers.