Caracterização micromorfológica e simulação computacional das propriedades de retenção de meios porosos via análise de imagens obtidas pela técnica da microtomografia computadorizada 3D

Abstract

Can the use of 3D X-ray micro-computed tomography (CT) and image analysis contribute to characterizing the structure of porous media and provide information for computer simulation of water retention properties in porous media? To answer this research problem, this study proposed three chapters (papers) in which, in each of them, parts of the research problem are addressed and, in the end, the interrelationship between the results made it possible to verify the robustness of the hypothesis that the 3D CT technique and image analysis would be suitable for characterizing the structure of porous media and capable of providing information for the computer simulation of water retention properties in porous media. In this way, Chapter 2, using 3D image analysis, characterized the structure of porous media obtained by the 3D CT technique and its relationship with water retention characteristics through the retention curve. Chapters 3 and 4 presented the Young-Laplace method (YLM) and simulated the retention curve from 3D images of porous media using the YLM. One of the advantages of accessing retention information for porous media by combining image analysis and computer simulation techniques is in terms of time consumption, given the slowness it takes to obtain a retention curve in the laboratory. From the point of view of computer simulation, although there are other methods, the YLM is a lightweight (in terms of computational load), accessible option (code under GNU GPLv3 license) that finds the necessary information in the input geometry (structure of the porous medium) to determine the equilibrium distributions between the phases (solid, liquid and gaseous).