A periodic grain consolidation model of porous media

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Abstract
Calculations are presented for a periodic grain consolidation model of porous media. The model is an extension of previous work on lattices of spheres, in which the radius of the spheres is allowed to increase past the point of close touching to form a consolidated medium. A collocation method is used for the solution of Stokes flow in terms of Lamb’s general solution in spherical coordinates. Excellent accuracy is achieved with only moderate computational effort. At low concentrations up to the close touching limit excellent agreement is found with the earlier calculations of Zick and Homsy [J. Fluid Mech. 115, 13 (1982)]. For high concentrations above the close touching limit, an asymptotic theory is presented that agrees within a few percent with the numerical computations over the entire consolidated range.