Measurement of the Permeability Tensor of Compressed Fibre Beds

A new method to measure the permeability tensor of highly compressed fibre beds is developed. The method is based on saturated parallel flow and is evaluated through experiments with various textile materials: press fabrics used in papermaking and fibre reinforcements designed for composites. Since the materials are in the form of sheets, two measuring cells are used, one for the principal in-plane permeabilities and the other for the out-of-plane permeability. A unique feature is that the edge and the bulk flow are measured separately, so that any influence from enhanced or suppressed edge flow may be eliminated. The technique is evaluated with good results in terms of scatter in the measured permeability and the influence of test geometry, pressure, and liquid properties.