New descriptors of connectivity-bottleneck effects improve understanding and prediction of diffusive transport in pore geometries
2025 (English)In: Computational materials science, ISSN 0927-0256, E-ISSN 1879-0801, Vol. 256, article id 113942Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
Bottlenecks can drastically reduce transport through porous materials. Previous work has concentrated on constriction-bottlenecks caused by variations in pore size. Here we study connectivity-bottlenecks, which are caused by many paths in the pore network passing through the same small part of the material. We develop three new connectivity descriptors, geodesic channel-strength, pore size-channels, and the closed pore-tortuosity that capture these effects. Five sets of computer-generated pore geometries with a wide variation in characteristics were used to evaluate the effect bottlenecks have on diffusive transport. We show that low connectivity as measured by the new bottleneck descriptors, can decrease diffusive transport drastically, but that in these data sets constriction-bottlenecks had a smaller effect. We also show that path-lengths and connectivity-bottlenecks can be highly correlated and adjustments using theoretical models of diffusive transport can help separate the effects. We provide a freely available software MIST that can be used to measure connectivity-bottleneck effects.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Elsevier B.V. , 2025. Vol. 256, article id 113942
Keywords [en]
Foamed products; Geotextiles; Mesopores; Bottleneck effects; Connectivity-bottleneck effect; Constriction-bottleneck effect; Diffusive transport; Diffusive transport prediction; Geodesic channel; Pore geometry; Pore geometry quantification; Porous medium; Geodesy
National Category
Civil Engineering
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:ri:diva-78595DOI: 10.1016/j.commatsci.2025.113942Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-105005005641OAI: oai:DiVA.org:ri-78595DiVA, id: diva2:1968770
Note
This work is funded by the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research (SSF grant AM13-0066), the Knut and Alice Wallenberg foundation (KAW grant 20012.0067), and the Swedish Research Council (grant 2016-04187).
2025-06-132025-06-132025-06-13Bibliographically approved