Reconstruction of 3D Porous Geometry for Coupled FEM-CFD Simulation

Porous materials can be found in numerous areas of life (e.g., applied science, material science), however, the simulation of the fluid flow and transport phenomena through porous media is a significant challenge nowadays. Numerical simulations can help to analyze and understand physical processes and different phenomena in the porous structure, as well as to determine certain parameters that are difficult or impossible to measure directly or can only be determined by expensive and time-consuming experiments. The basic condition for the numerical simulations is the 3D geometric model of the porous material sample, which is the input parameter of the simulation. For this reason, geometry reconstruction is highly critical for pore-scale analysis. This paper introduces a complex process for the preparation of the microstructure's geometry in connection with a coupled FEM-CFD two-way fluid-structure interaction simulation. Micro-CT has been successfully applied to reconstruct both the fluid and solid phases of the used porous material.