Continuum percolation of porous media via random packing of overlapping cube-like particles

The pore configuration in porous medium is assumed to be the randomly distributed cube-like particles which can overlap each other in the periodic cubic domain, and the impact of particle characteristics on the percolation property of these cube-like particle packing systems is analyzed.Firstly, by combining the percolation models and finite-size scaling analysis, three numerical parameters(i.e., percolation transition width △L, local percolation threshold ψc（L）, and correlation length exponent v) for the cube-like particle systems with shape parameter s in[1.0, +∞] are derived successively. Then, based on the relation between the percolation thresholdψc in infinite space and the local percolation threshold ψc（L）, the corresponding ψc with s in[1.0, +∞] are further determined. It is shown from the study that the characteristics of cube-like particles have significant influence on the global percolation threshold ψc of the particle packing systems. As the parameter s increases from 1.0 to +∞, the percolation threshold ψc will go down persistently. When the surface of cube-like particles is cubical and spherical, respectively, the minimum and maximum thresholds ψc,min and ψc,max are obtained.