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Transport properties in sintered porous media composed of two particle sizes

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1987 J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 20 1637
(http://iopscience.iop.org/0022-3727/20/12/015)
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J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 20 (1987) 1637-1644. Printed in the UK

E Guyont, L Oger and T J Plona

Schlumberger-Doll Research, Old Quarry Road, Ridgefield, CT 06877-4108, USA
Received 9 December 1986, in final form 21 April 1987

Abstract. We have studied sintered bimodal distributions of spheres (size ratio

1 :4). We discuss the preparation and the characterisation of these model porous
structures where the porosity can be adjusted by varying the ratio of sphere
diameters, the volume ratio as well as the rate of sintering. We study the formation
factor (effective resistivity of the pore fluid) and permeability of the materials as a
function of porosity. A comparison with a previous work by Wong, Koplik and
Tomanic on sintered monosize distributions of spheres leads to the definition of an
effective length scale for our problem. It is defined by an average on the grain
geometry and is independent of the porosity. We also discuss other candidate
length scales using measurements of formation factor and permeability.

1. Introduction

Most rocks have a strongly interconnected

pore space
which makes them permeable to the flow of fluids. In
addition, if the rock is an insulator and is filled with a
conducting fluid, its conductivity will alsobecharacteristic of the connectivity of the pore space. It is of
great practicalinterest to see how thepermeability,
k , and the conductivity, a,, are related to the average
properties of the pore geometry like the porosity q
(fraction of void space) or some characteristic length
scales of the porous medium. For example a relationshipbetween
a,, k andtheporespacehasbeen
establishedinrealporousmedia
orfractured rock
samples when the variation of geometry is caused by
increasing
hydrostatic
pressure
(Walsh
and
Brace
of thisrelationshiphas
1984). A secondexample
been shown by Wong et a1 (1984) (WKT) using monosize packings of glass spheres(diameter
a) which
weresubsequentlysinteredto
variousdegrees
by
heating. The sintering provides a means to vary both
the porosity as well as the pore size (which scales as
a) andtocreatesamples
of variousdiameters with
the
same
porosity.
These
experiments
on such
syntheticporousmaterialsindicate
a fairly universal
and simple behaviour which will be reviewed in 3 2.
In the present experimental work, we have made
use of sintered binary packings of spheres in order to
size distributions
studythe effect of grainandpore
on transport properties. The techniques for preparing
i Permanent address: LHMP, ESPCI, UA 857 CNRS, 75231 Paris
Ckdex 05, France.
0022-37271871121637 + 08 $02.50 @ 1987 IOP Publishing Ltd

homogeneous packings are reviewed in 3. In 4, we

presentand
discuss ourexperimental
results. The
comparisonwithmonosizeassembliesleads
to the
definition of characteristic
a
averagelengthscale
which can beapproached by variousexperimental
techniques.Finally,
we discuss the possibilities of
obtaining more detailed information on the pore size
distribution and its influence on flow properties. Conclusions are contained in 5 .
2. Previous results
2.1. Theory

The conductivity a, of a porousmedium filled by a

conducting fluid of conductivity a, is characterised by
the formation factor defined as

= af/a,.

(1)

It can be related to a dimensionless tortuosity T by

F = T/q

(2)

where T describes the scattering of the potential field

(Laplace equation) by the complex random geometry.
The concept of tortuositycanbe
verified using a
simple parallel tube geometry: T = 1 for tubes parallel to the flow. The parameter T can be measured in
several independent manners (i.e., slow Biot acoustic
waves,inertialdrag,etc)(PlonaandJohnson
1983).
useful
A empirical
result-the
so-called
Archies
law-can be written as
F = q-
(3)
1637

E Guyon et a/

where the exponent m can vary between 1.5 and 2 in

glass packings
(WKT).
In
particular,
for
dilute
a
assembly of spheres, an exactcalculationshows that
m = P (Maxwell 1881).
In addition, the Darcy permeability, k , is defined
as
U = - (k/r]>VP
(4)
where U is a flow rate per unit area defined on a representative elementary volume sufficiently larger than
V p is the drivingpressure
a typical porevolume;
gradient, and r] is the fluid viscosity.
Permeability is sometimes given by the KozenyCarman relation which can be justified for the case of
a set of tortuous tubes as

k = q3/S;TI.

(5)

Here T' is a numerical constant which can be loosely

related
to
the
tortuosity
as
defined
above.
The
specific surface area S , is the internal surface of the
rock per unit volume. Dimensionally, S , is an inverse
length [L"] whereas the permeability scales as [ L 2 ] .
A moregeneralrelationforthedependence
of
permeability on porosity can be written as

CC

qm'.

10-2

10"
Porosity

Figure 1. The formation factor F versus the porosity for

sintered monosize spheres of different diameter measured
by WKT (open circles) and for sintered bimodal distributions
(full circles). The broken curve is the calculation of Roberts
and Schwartz (1985). The full line is the calculation of
Maxwell (1881). The overall agreement indicates that, quite
independently of scale and pore size distribution, F is a
good measure of the porosity. (Note: the calculations of
Roberts and Schwartz are similar for random packings,
simple cubic, and face-centred cubic).

(6)

In the recent work of WKT, they analyse their experimental data of formation factor and permeability on
monosize sintered spheres using an idealised medium
made of interconnected tubes, which can be replaced
by a random resistor network model havingvariable
resistances Ri. The effect of sintering is modelled by
shrinkingtheradius
of the resistors (i.e.,tubes)at
random. The local electrical conductance of a bond,
R;l, scales as rt where ri would be the radius of an
equivalent
hydraulic
circuit
filled with conducting
brine. The local flow resistance, however, should vary
as r! as is expected from the Poiseuille flow in a cylindrical tube of radius ri anda fixed length. Using
this description, they find numerically that m and m'
of (3) and (6) are related as
m' = 2m
(7)
wherethefactor
2 is associated with thedifferent
exponents of ri in the two problems.
The WKT results coupled with the fact that the tortuousgeometry
plays asomewhatsimilarrolefor
both k and a, suggests a simple relation, independent
of the degree of compaction, between k and F such
as
k = CF-2L2
(8)
where L is a characteristic length scale necessary for
thenormalisation
of therelation.
By making the
appropriate choice of theconstant C , L canbeset
equal to a.
2.2. Experiments

Theexperimentalresults
of WKT onthe monosize
sintered samples support this description. In figure 1,
1638

theformationfactor
is plottedasafunction
of cp
(open circles) forsintered glass samples of different
sphere diameters (a = 50, 100, 200 pm). The result is
unique
a
curve
independent
of thediameter,
as
expected. The linear fit corresponds to Archie's law
with m = 8 (Maxwell 1881). Thebroken curve is a
theoretical
prediction
of Roberts
and
Schwartz
(1985). In their analysis, the formation factor is calculated using aperiodicarray
of spheres in contact
which they
subsequently
grow uniformly
without
changing thedistancebetweenspherecentres(not
allowing sphere overlap) to simulate the reduction
in
porosity due
sintering.
to
There
is general
a
agreementbetweentheoryandexperimentbetween
Q, = 0.40 (nearthe
limit of denserandom packing
withoutsintering) toaround Q, = 0.10. The agreement between quite different models and the experimental
data
suggests that (3) is reasonably
independent of geometry details.
of F
Below Q, = 0.10, there is afasterincrease
with decreasing Q, which comesfromthe
successive
closing of pores. In the Roberts and Schwartz model,
the closing takes place at the same time at all throats
at a concentration that depends on the particular lattice. Quite generally, we expect that this closing takes
place in a more or less random fashion in disordered
materials
and
that
percolation
a
threshold
type
description could apply. We are presently studying, in
some detail, the formation factor in this low porosity
limit. The crucial problem, in this
case,
is
to define thecorrect porositysincealargefraction
of theremainingporosity
is closed(asalso
seen
of BourbieandZinszner
(1985) on
in thework
Fontainebleau sandstones). In our work, as
in WKT'S

Transport properties in sintered porous media

work, we use the porosity obtained by the volume of

water filling the sample under vacuum.
Permeability, on theotherhand,
is expected to
scale as the square of the grain diameter, and we use
the normalised ratio k/a2 for different monodisperse
sphere packings. In addition, because of the good
the
correspondence between Q? and F wecanuse
latter parameter to characterise the porosity for different degrees of sintering. In figure 2 we show a loglog plot of the normalised ratio k/a2 versus F for the
same three classes of monosize spheres used in figure
1. Note that we obtain a good fit with (8) down to a
value for cp of 0.05. The value of the parameter C =
14.1.

\.
J

\
I

10

IO2

lo3

obtain porosities less than 0.36. Sintering of monosize

packings of glass beads has been used by WKT and by
Johnson et a1 (1982) to achieve consolidated samples
with porosities varying between 0.37 and 0.04. An alternate method to reduce porosities is to make an unconsolidated mixture with two different sphere sizes (Ben
Aim and Le Goff 1967). We have combined these
two techniques to produce consolidated binary samples
having a porosity,cps, which is a function of composition
and sintering. We can obtain in particular consolidated
samples having the sameporosity but different pore size
distributions and geometries.
The porosity reduction in unconsolidated binary
mixtures can be achieved by either increasing the size
ratio of the two particles or by choosing a volume
percentage of small spheres 2 mixed with particles 1
(Ben Aim and Le Goff 1967) close to the critical value
N,. This latter result is shown in figure 3 for three
different particle size ratios. At N,, the small spheres
most efficiently pack into the large pores createdby the
large spheres. We can easily findthe limit of the porosity
for two sphere packings: if the ratio between the two
sizes is very large, many small spheres fill up the free
pore volume between the large spheres. In this case,
packings of both classes of spheres arelike the monosize
packing in an unbounded volume. Therefore, the minimal porosity is cpm = (0.36)* = 0.13. Experimentally,
however, it is not possible at present to achieve this
porosity minimum.

Figure 2. Using the raw data of WKT for three diameters of

spheres (a = 50, 100, 200pm), we obtain a universal plot
of the dimensionless permeability ratiok/$ versus F. The
full line is a plot ofthe equation k = 14.1 F-*.

- 36

c32
x

This model study can be comparedtothe systematic

study by Walsh and Brace (1984) on the effect of pressureonthetransportpropertiesfora
large class of rocks.
They find a relation similar to (8) but with a ratio of
and 1.5
3 dependexponents m/m that varies between
ing onthe local details such as the asperities of fractures,
= 2 in the
present
samples).
In order tostudy in more detail the relation
between
k . Fand Q, in a situation intermediatebetween monosize
glass spheres and real rocks, we are presenting in the
next section our results on binary mixtures of sintered
glass spheres. Our data will be analysed in light Of the
WKT
above.
outlined
work

(rnlrn

g 28

24
N

Figure 3. The
of porosity ~u for unconsolidated
binary
packings
with
ratio
a
diameters
of
R = D, /D2 as a
function of the volume fraction of small spheres N. The
unsintered porosity for the particular diameter ratio 4 of the
particles used in Our experiments was not known
accurately enough to be included in this figure or in table
The non~monotonicvariation with a
porosity
around N = 0.3hasbeendocumented in DreviouS
experimental and theoretical
analyses.

3. Fabrication and properties of binary mixtures

It is well known that, when an unconsolidated

and randomdisordered
packing is made with
monosize spheres,one can obtaina packing fraction
with a porosity intermediate between loose packing with
a porosity close to 0.42 and close packing with a porosity
close to0.36.It isof interest to consider methods to

Thus, ifwe want to obtain one particular porosity,

we canuse several different procedures. Wecan choose
eithertheratio of sphere sizes, the percentage of spheres
2 mixedwith spheres 1, or thedegree of sintering. By
combining these three variables, we can increase the
number of possible ways of creating packings with the
same porosity. Once we createa packing using apar1639

E Guyon et a/

ticular set of variables, we also define a particular distribution of pore sizes. Therefore, we have the procedures
at hand to fabricate a set of samples with a wide distribution of pore sizes. For example, we can see in figure
4 two distributionsof pore sizes obtained fora ratio 1:4
with the same porosity (91 = 0.30)but with the two
different volume fractions of small particles N = 0.05
and 0.80. Thcse pore size distributions are calculated
based on a model of Doddst (1980).

Large particies ill

Small p a r t l c l e s i 2 1

"

f)

Translatlon

f
0

0.3

/
Series o f s l e v e s

0.2

"

0 . 0 . 0 . 0 . 0 . 1 . 1 . 1 . 1 . 1 . 1 . 2
22 39 71 55
87 03 19 35 51 68 8 4

0.3 1

0.
0.
22

(bl

0 . 0 . 0.
39 7155

87

1 . 1 .
0 3 19

1 . 1 . 1 .
35 51 6 8

1.
84

Rotatlon

Figure 5. The apparatus used to prepare the

unconsolidated mixture. V, and V, are two vibrating
electromagnetic distributors (Brinkmann).The vibrator V,
for small particles is placed on a translation table to
increase the radial homogeneity. The particles mix through
a series of sieves of hole size larger than the layer to
spread the large particles. The beads fill a rotating graphite
mould.

Slze

Figure 4. Two pore size distributions are shown for a

binary packing with sphere ratio 1 :4 at a constant porosity
of 30%. The plots show the percentage of pores as a
function of size (normalised by the small sphere radius).
(a),N = 0.05; and (b), N = 0.80.

tributors have been used

to establish a constant flow
rate of each species. By adjusting the ratio of the flow
rates of thedistributors, weobtainthecorrectpercentage of spheres within the packing. Theparticles fall
through a series of screens with hole sizes four times
the large beadsize in order to distribute theparticles in
In our studies we have chosen only one ratio (1 :4)
the mould. In order to further increase the spread of
which is large enough to obtain a large pore size distrithe small spheres, we alsomechanicallyoscillate the
bution but which is smaller than the criticalratio of
vibrating
distributor of the small particles with a slow
1:4.45 where a small sphere can
fit exactlyinsidea
translation
movement with a maximal displacement of
tetrahedron created by four large spheres. We use two
2
cm.
The
mould,
which has a height of 20 cm and a
bead sizes (88-104 pm; 297-354 pm) obtained from the
7
cm,
is
continuously rotated ata speedfast
diameter
of
Cataphote Div.of Ferro Company.Since the two classes
enough
to
pack
less
than one large grain size thickness
of spheres have the same density (2.48 g/cm3), we can
per
revolution.
Optical
observations of the free surface
use the weight to calculate the volume fraction of the
of
the
packing
during
filling
show that thekinetic energy
two sizes mixed inside the packing.
of
the
falling
particles
as
they
touchthe bed of particles
The apparatus for creatinga binary packing is illuscause
them
to
readjust
slightly
their
position without any
trated in figure 5. Two electromagnetic vibrating dismacroscopic motion. This process replaces the shaking
+ The pore size distribution calculation assumes (following Dodds
process, iften used to produce densepackin@, without
(1980)) thatthereare five tetrahedral sub-units in a packing of two
creating large-scale heterogeneities.
sizes of particles. The largest sphere that fits in the tetrahedral
Our procedure of filling gives packings with a good
sub-unit defines the pore size. Each of the five binary pore sizes is
then assumed to have adistribution of sizes as if it were in a
radialhomogeneityandanexcellentazimuthalone.We
monosize packing.
homogeneity
radial the
checked
have
and
by taking
1640

Transport properties in sintered porous media

separating some local quantities of the unconsolidated

packings, obtained by coring several packingswith very
small tubes inserted parallel to the cylinder axis, and
measuring porosity.
After this first step of filling, the mould is placed
inside a uniaxial press and undergoes twenty cycles of
pressure(maximalpressure:
1 MPa) to eliminate the
inhomogeneity duetothe
differentkineticenergies
between the top and the bottomfalling particles (Oger
ef a1 1986). By studying the porosity and the transport
in the same sintered
properties of several cored samples,
packing at different position, we havealso checked the
absence of layering effects which can be obtained for
low rotation rates. The homogeneity and the isotropy
of the samples are typically within 0.01 of the porosity.
We can conclude that this procedure resultsin a homogeneousandisotropic packing (TroadecandBideau
1981). After this series of pressure cycles we measure
initial porosity
the length of the sample to determine the
cpu before sintering.
The last step is a consolidation of the packing by a
heat sinteringwith a particular temperature and time to
produce the required consolidated
porosity vs.A typical
sintering temperature is 650 "C. We have checked that
identityafter
thetwo classes of sphereskeeptheir
sintering down to porosity of 0.10 (see figure 6 ) .
Samples for the
conductivity-permeability measurements
are
cored
from
the
sintered
consolidated

t The non-linear Darcy law relates to the existence of lVlV terms

in the Darcy law and comes from convective terms in the local
Navier-Stokes equation. It is expected that such terms should be
present when the Reynolds number Re p V d k / v is larger than
unity ( p is the density of the fluid). However, due to the large
distribution of currents in heterogeneously connected media, we
may expect to observe it for lower flow rates than in uniform pore
geometries. We have looked systematically for such effects in the
present experiments without observing them. In our case, the
Reynolds number is lower than 0.1.

material. The standard sample has

a diameter of 2.0 cm
and a length 3.75 cm. The measurements of porosity,
conductivity and permeability are made using standard
techniques (WKT). Our conductivity measurements are
made with aNaClsolution
having a resistivity of
0.20 S2 m. For the permeability measurements, we use
a Hassler collar which allows us to pressurise a rubber
membrane against the outside of the core to prevent
flow around the core. Thefluid pressure applied to the
samples was of the order of 100 to 10cm of water for
the large porosity samples and of the order of 2000 cm
for the smallestporosityones.
We neverfoundany
dependence of the permeability with the pressure gradient applied to the cells. This indicates the absence of
non-linear Darcy effect?.
4. Results and discussion

All of thedataaboutthesamplesas
well asthe
measurements of cps, k , and F are contained in table 1.

Table 1. We summarise our data on binary consolidated

packings on which we have measured: porosityqs,
formation factor F, permeability k (in millidarcy), length
parameters L, and L2 (in pm) and the volume percentage
of small spheres N. We have not indicated the data on the
lowest porosity samples given in figure 1 because we have
been able to measure the conductivity but not the
permeability with enough accuracy. Note that the same
porosity can be obtained for different volume percentages
of small spheres and different sintering times. The
exceptionally large difference obtained between the data
for samples 6.1 B and 6.1T is likely due to a local
heterogeneous distribution of grains. This conclusion is
reasonable since an increase in F is consistent with a
decrease in k.
~ _ _ _ _ _

Figure 6. A thin section of a binary sample with a

concentration of small spheres N = 0.30. It shows that for
moderate sintering, both classes of spheres retain their
identity in the sintering process. Note that the surfacesof
the particles are actually smooth; the micropores on the
cuts through the particles were produced by the thin
section process.

Name

qs

k(mD)
L2

L1

4.28
4.2T
4.1T
4.18
12.1T
1.2T
12.1C
12.18
6.1T
6.18
3.1T
1.3C
3.1 B
13.1T
1.28
2.18
11.1C
13.1C
13.1 B
11.1T
7,18
8.1T
8.18
7.1T

0.124
0.126
0.1 29
0.130
0.164
0.183
0.185
0.195
0.216
0.219
0.222
0.235
0.248
0.260
0.277
0.280
0.297
0.299
0.301
0.311
0.314
0.328
0.334
0.344

29.87
35.09
30.67
27.48
23.88
14.1 2
17.35
16.40
14.02
26.84
10.62
10.1 8
10.04
7.43
7.26
6.89
7.43
5.64
6.32
6.63
4.46
5.84
5.97
5.88

500.0
400.0
486.8
585.1
1149.5
3691.6
2542.1
2916.5
5250.0
1304.0
3504.0
6247.4
4366.1
5171.1
15933.1
8595.3
2647.0
12265.0
9537.0
3553.0
5309.0
42698.0
41 816.0
461 2.0

177.85
186.91
180.22
177.02
215.58
228.46
232.99
235.87
270.55
258.12
167.34
214.33
176.73
142.37
243.95
170.02
101.83
166.37
164.40
105.31
86.50
321.20
325.19
106.39

N
195.56
195.56
195.56
195.56
227.32
214.52
227.32
227.32
257.64
257.64
182.55
214.52
182.55
189.09
214.52
188.57
96.50
189.09
189.09
96.50
102.26
325.50
325.50
102.26

0.28
0.28
0.28
0.28
0.18
0.21
0.18
0.18
0.11
0.11
0.33
0.21
0.33
0.30
0.21
0.30
1.0
0.30
0.30
1.0
0.92
0
0
0.92
~~

1641

E Guyon et a/

We performed measurements on twenty samples covering a porosity range from 0.35 to 0.10. The volume
fraction N of small beads mixed with large ones range
from 0 to 1.
The first results to be discussed are the measurements of the formation factor. In figure 1, we show the
measured formation factor versus porosity for all the
binary samples. We see that thebinary data (full circles)
are consistent with the monosize data (open circles)
and depend only on the total porosity and not on any
characteristic pore or grain size.

300

consolidated as well as for consolidated mixtures?. This

result is significant because it suggests that the characteristic length scale controlling transport properties is
independent of the porosity (initial or after sintering).
In addition, this result tells us that we can obtain a
good value of characteristic length just by knowing the
initial grain-size distributionS.

*/

100

2 00
L , I@)

300

100

2 00
L ! (pm1

100

3 00

Figure 7. A plot of L2 versus L1 for unconsolidated binary

mixtures. L1 is obtained using values of permeability k and
formation factor F obtained by us in independent
experiments and equation (8). L2 is an average grain
diameter given by equation (9). There is a good agreement
between L, and L2 as seen by the line L1 = L2.

Our second key result relates to the permeability

measurements. Using (8) with the constant C = 14.1
obtained from theWKT work for monosize samples, we
can use the permeability and formation factor data of
our binary samples to estimate a characteristic average
length, L1.This length is an average length scale characteristic of the transport properties. Next we correlate
L1 to a geometric length scale L2 of the packing of
unsintered spheres of the mixtures. L 2 is theratio
between the average volume and the average surface
of the unsintered particles of the binary mixtures:
[N'D: + (1 - N ' ) D i ]
L - [N'D:
(1 - N ' p 3

where Dl is the diameter of the small spheres, D 2 is the

diameter of the large spheres, and N' is the numerical
fraction of small spheres. This parameter
has
also been
for unconsolidated binary mixtures by
Lemaitre et a1 (1986). We emphasise that this length is
characteristic of the granular geometry and not of
the pore size. In figures and 8, we show the good
agreement between the values of L1 and L 2 for un1642

Figure 8. A plot of L2 versus L, for bimodal consolidated

samples. The agreement between the length parameter L,
defined in equation (8) and the average grain size L2
independently of the variation of porosity with sintering and
of the length scales of the pore size is a central result of
the present work. The full line indicates L1 = LP.

It is of interest to consider other approaches to the

problem of the correspondence between permeability
and formation factor. Quite generally, we may ask the
question: what is the 'best' length scale to evaluate the
permeability of heterogeneous materials? We mention
in the following some efforts in this direction.
(i) We make use of another candidate relation
between k and F which can be obtained using equations
(2) and ( 5 ) and identifying the tortuosity factors T and
T'. This should lead to an estimate of the permeability
as

k u - q3
(TSZ) P2'F
where the hydraulic radius p = q / S , is the ratio of the
surface to volume of the pores. Note that this relation
which establishes a proportionality between k and F'

t We have also tried to characterise an average length by using

ratios of different
moments of the grain diameter such as
fourth to
third or second to first moment but could not fit them to L , .
$ Thedifference between
equations (8) and (11) can also be
attributedto the definition of the length scales in both cases. The
length
which
is an
average grain size and is roughly
proportional to the average pore size is much less affected by
sinteringthatthe
throat size measured by equations such that
k a F" (Wong 1987).

Transport properties in sintered porous media

is quite different from equation(8) which relates? k and

F2.
In thelatterexpression all thedependence on
porosity is included in k and F (equations (3) and (6)).
In equation(lo), it enters in the calculation of the
permeabilityand of thehydraulicradius
in a more
fundamental form than in equation (8). As mentioned
in section 2 the specific area scalesas [L"] and is
related to the pore size geometry; for example, for a
large rectangular channel it identifies with the smallest
width of the channel.A direct measurementof the total
surface area and of the porosity can be obtained using
random cutsof a porous medium. This
is a very classical
measurement in sterology and we refer toclassical textbooks on the subject (Serra, 1982).
(ii) Johnson et a1 (1986) have recently introduced a
new length scale parameter, the A parameter, which is
defined for well connected porous media and can be
.roughly understood as a weighted volume over surface
ratio of theporespace
consideringonly the active
regions of the pore space(in particular dead armswould
not contribute in the evaluation of A). They have analysed fourth sound attenuation measurements on the
glass beadsamplesandhavedeterminedthatthe
A
parameter is consistent with the relation

ko = AA2/F

(11)

where the numerical parameterA varies between 0.125

and 0.25.
(iii) Recently, Katz and Thompson(1987) have suggested that mercury porosimetrycurves could lead to a
quantitative prediction of the value of conductivity and
permeability in porous rocks. Their argument 'is based
on the approachof Ambegaokar et a1 (1971) of a random
network with a broad distribution of resistances. The
transport is dominated by theweaker critical bonds
among the subset of good elements needed to insure
continuity of the lattice. This argument had been first
applied to the calculation of the permeability of fractured rocks; Charlaix et a1 (1986) establish upper and
lower bounds for k using a subset of local permeances
around avaluecorresponding
tothe critical bonds.
The results of Katz and Thompson (1987) establish a
connection between the distribution of bonds and the
t A simple way to understand the difference between the two laws
(equations (8) and (10)) for the dependence of k with the
formation factor F was suggested to us by one referee. Let us
consider a medium made of parallel tubes where the probability
that a pore has radius r is given by P(r). The formation factor and
the permeability are given by

F"

d r P(r)r*

results of mercury porosimetry experiments.In particular, the critical bonds correspond to the inflection point
in the porosimetry curves
which determines theweakest
bonds needed to insure breakthrough of the invading
fluid.
We
are
presently
testing the
correspondence
betweenporosimetryresultsandthetransportproperties of our multiple poresize systems. As seen above,
we do not expect majordifferences between the various
length parameters involved in (10) or (11) in well connected porous systems. On the other hand, we would
expect more marked changes in a weakly poorly connectedsamplesuchasaporousmedianexttothe
percolation threshold of the pore space (where A does
not include the effect of dead arms). We also should
not expect the empirical relation (8) with L defined by
(9) to apply.

5. Conclusion

Wehavebeenabletopreparehomogeneous
synthetic porous samples yielding a large distribution of
pore sizes. The comparison of the formation factor and
permeability for various mixtures and sintering rates
leads to thedefinition of a characteristic transport property length scale L that is a simple average of volume
over surface of the unconsolidated grains. The present
extension of thework is twofold. On one hand, we
know how to prepare materials with much larger heterogeneitiesthatcanseparatethedifferent
length
scales. On the other hand, the study suggests that the
formation factor and permeability are not sensitive tools
to study the distribution of current in the porous media
due to the distribution of pore sizes. Tracer dispersion
in which a dye is injected in a porous media penetrated
by a flowing fluid appears to bea more sensitive tool to
study these heterogeneities. Recent experimental work
alongtheselineshavebeendone
by Lemaitre et a1
(1986) on unconsolidatedbinarypackings of spheres
similar to ours and by Charlaix et a1 (1986) on sintered
monosize glass spheres.

Acknowledgments

We have had veryuseful discussions with E Charlaix, J

P H u h , J Koplik, L Schwartz,M Ridge and P Z Wong.
The technical help of P Gerardi, D RossiniandL
McGowan is gratefully acknowledged.

and
k

d r P(r)r4

where n is the number of pores per unit area. If one shrinks all the
pores by a constant factor, one recovers the WKT results obtained
on a lattice k F-' (equation (8)). On the other hand, if one
changes the porosity b changing the density of pores, n , then
k F'(equation (l0)Y. The presentexperiments suggest that
sintering decreases the pores in proportion to their radius.

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