Transport in ordered and disordered porous media I: The cellular average and the use of weighting functions

In this work we consider transport in ordered and disordered porous media using singlephase flow in rigid porous mediaas an example. We defineorder anddisorder in terms of geometrical integrals that arise naturally in the method of volume averaging, and we show that dependent variables for ordered media must generally be defined in terms of thecellular average. The cellular average can be constructed by means of a weighting function, thus transport processes in both ordered and disordered media can be treated with a single theory based on weighted averages. Part I provides some basic ideas associated with ordered and disordered media, weighted averages, and the theory of distributions. In Part II a generalized averaging procedure is presented and in Part III the closure problem is developed and the theory is compared with experiment. Parts IV and V provide some geometrical results for computer generated porous media.Roman Letters A interfacial area of the- interface contained within the macroscopic region, m² - A_e area of entrances and exits for the-phase contained within the macroscopic system, m² - g gravity vector, m/s² - I unit tensor - K traditional Darcy's law permeability tensor, m² - L general characteristic length for volume averaged quantities, m - characteristic length (pore scale) for the-phase - (y) weighting function - m(–y) (y), convolution product weighting function - _v special weighting function associated with the traditional averaging volume - N unit normal vector pointing from the-phase toward the-phase - p pressure in the-phase, N/m² - p0 reference pressure in the-phase, N/m² - p traditional intrinsic volume averaged pressure, N/m² - r0 radius of a spherical averaging volume, m - r position vector, m - r position vector locating points in the-phase, m - averaging volume, m³ - V volume of the-phase contained in the averaging volume, m³ - V _cell volume of a unit cell, m³ - v velocity vector in the-phase, m/s - v traditional superficial volume averaged velocity, m/s - x position vector locating the centroid of the averaging volume or the convolution product weighting function, m - y position vector relative to the centroid, m - y position vector locating points in the-phase relative to the centroid, m Greek Letters indicator function for the-phase - Dirac distribution associated with the- interface - V/V, volume average porosity - mass density of the-phase, kg/m³ - viscosity of the-phase, Ns/m²