Validity of the permeability Carman-Kozeny equation: A volume averaging approach

A volume averaging approach is used to estimate the porous media permeability. Contrary to traditional methods that rely on solving the Navier-Stokes equations for laminar flow, this approach has the advantage that it does not require the specification of some physical conditions and parameters (pressure drop and viscosity). Numerical results on synthetic models of porous media showed that (i) the local porous medium configuration has an important effect on the permeability value, and (ii) the Carman-Kozeny equation cannot describe the permeability behavior as a function of porosity and characteristic lengths. In turn, our results indicate that simple empirical equations, commonly used in practice, are unable to describe the permeability functionalities over a broad range of porous media configurations.