Measurement of Void Size Correlation in Inhomogeneous Porous Media

In previous works, we have described a void space reconstruction method based on non-wetting fluid intrusion, wetting fluid drainage, and image analysis data. The method has been applied to a wide range of substances, including sandstone, compressed and sintered powders, paper substrates and coatings, soil and fibrous mats. We have also demonstrated in a previous work that the spatial correlation of similarly sized voids within inhomogeneous porous media has a huge effect on permeability. We therefore describe a method of measuring such correlation, suitable for use in our void space reconstructions. The method involves a cubic spline smoothing of a variogram of the void sizes in a binary image of the porous medium. It has been successfully tested on an artificially correlated void network, comprising two sintered glass discs of different void size ranges. Stereological effects, caused by the off-centre sectioning of voids, can interfere with the variogram features. Our method is sh own to be insensitive to artificially generated stereological interference. The method is also applied to sandstone samples.