Experimental study and theoretical analysis of fluid resistance in porous media of glass spheres

Porous media have a wide range of applications in production and life, as well as in science and technology. The study of flow resistance in porous media has a great effect on industrial and agricultural production. The flow resistance of fluid flow through a 20-mm glass sphere bed is studied experimentally. It is found that there is a significant deviation between the Ergun equation and the experimental data. A staggered pore-throat model is established to investigate the flow resistance in randomly packed porous media. A hypothesis is made that the particles are staggered in a regular triangle arrangement. An analytical formulation of the flow resistance in random porous media is derived. There are no empirical constants in the formulation and every parameter has a specific physical meaning. The formulation predictions are in good agreement with the experimental data. The deviation is within the range of 25%. This shows that the staggered pore-throat model is reasonable and is expected to be verified by more experiments and extended to other porous media.