FLUID-FLOW THROUGH RANDOMLY PACKED MONODISPERSE FIBERS - THE KOZENY-CARMAN PARAMETER ANALYSIS

Experimental studies have been carried out on fluid flow through porou s media made up of randomly packed monodisperse fibers. The permeabili ty and the Kozeny-Carman parameter k(k) are deduced from experimental results. The variations of the permeability increase exponentially wit h the porosity. The parameter k(k) is a decreasing function of the por osity epsilon and tends asymptotically to a value close to that deduce d from a modified Ergun relation. The important decrease, observed for small aspect ratios, is certainly an effect of the cut sections of fi bers. The results in terms of parameter k(k), are systematically compa red to those deduced from various theoretical models. The variation la ws of the parameter k(k), deduced from different models, present impor tant discrepancies with our experimental results.