PROBLEMS IN THE DETERMINATION OF PORE CONNECTIVITY BY DIGITAL IMAGE-PROCESSING

In the practical use of porous materials, pore blocking processes can occur leading to a decrease of the accessibility of the pore space. Th is percolation-type behavior is mainly influenced by the connectivity of the pore network. In order to characterize this property of porous media, the usefulness of a method is discussed which determines a valu e for pore connectivity with the help of digital image processing. Sta rting with a microphotograph of a prepared section of the porous sampl e, the proposed algorithm, in a first step, covers the pore space of t he digitized image with convex areas, In the second step, it determine s the number of convex areas connected to a given one. The mean number of the neighbouring areas is said to be the measure of the connectivi ty of a pore network. To check the usefulness of the method, the conne ctivities of different pore textures are measured and the results are evaluated critically.