Theoretical Approach of Bubble Entrapment Through Interconnected Pores: Supplying Principle

Fiber-reinforced composite materials are often composed of fibers collected in bundles that are stitched together. During the impregnation of a fibrous preform by a liquid resin, the multiscale porous medium leads to an heterogenous flow front, and therefore bubbles may be created and entrapped. Indeed, for a wetting system, capillary pressure is higher inside bundle, due to the microspace between fibers, than outside the bundles that represent the macrospace, thus, inducing an overflow between both pore scales. Motivated by the prediction of bubble formation during fiber fabric infiltration for composite materials, we attempt to determine the bubble rate in imbibition through a simple model network with two connected capillaries, called ??Pore Doublet Model?? (PDM). Our system is composed of two parts: a first part, continuously interconnected, in which the suppling mass to the microchannel from the macrochannel occurs, and a second part connected only by nodes. To quantify the leading flow front, a theoretical model based on the supplying principle and arranged Washburn equation is proposed. This approach has been conducted for wetting liquids, Newtonian flows, incompressible fluids and pores, no inertial and gravitational forces and no dynamic contact angle. The geometrical variability (channel radius and length) and the different configuration of connections (continuous and discrete) influence the entrapped bubble rate, leading to either microbubble in the microchannel or macrobubble in the macrochannel. The outcomes can contribute to the knowledge of void formation especially during the filling of fibrous preforms and may extend the previous works on the PDM in general.