CALCULATING EQUIVALENT PERMEABILITY - A REVIEW

The purpose of this article is to review the various methods used to c alculate the equivalent permeability of a heterogeneous porous medium. It shows how equivalence is defined by using a criterion of flow or o f the energy dissipated by viscous forces and explains the two differe nt concepts of effective permeability and block permeability. The inte ntion of this review is to enable the reader to use the various publis hed techniques and to indicate in what circumstances they can be most suitably applied. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.