Estimates and bounds of dynamic permeability of granular media

This paper presents a study of dynamic permeability of porous media combining homogenization of periodic media (HPM) and the self-consistent method (SCM). By taking advantage of the physical principles identified with HPM, the application of SCM leads to the determination of two physically admissible dynamic permeability assessments, both different from that given by the cell model. A comparison with numerical modeling demonstrates the fairly good reliability of the three estimates for granular media consisting of a periodic array of spherical grains. Furthermore, the self-consistent values enable exact bounds for the dynamic permeability of a wide class of porous media to be derived with a clear identification of their microstructure (grain and fluid size distribution). (C) 2008 Acoustical Society of America. [DOI: 10.1121/1.2999050]