A Pore‐Throat Segmentation Method Based on Local Hydraulic Resistance Equivalence for Pore‐Network Modeling

The pore network is an approximate representation of the void space of porous materials, such as rocks and soil, via pores (corresponding to large cavities) and throats (narrow constrictions). During extraction of networks from real void space, ambiguous definitions or determinations of pores and throats may cause significant errors in the prediction of single/multi‐phase transport properties. Meanwhile, the pore‐throat segmentation needs to exclude non‐physical parameters as much as possible. In this work, we propose a pore‐throat segmentation method based on local hydraulic resistance equivalence between the real void space and the simplified pore‐throat geometry. Each pore‐throat interface is carefully determined at the position where the simplified tubes preserve the local hydraulic resistance of the real space best. This local segmentation method ensures equivalency between extracted pore network and real pore space without any empirical or non‐physical parameters. After validations of accuracy and reliability by benchmarks, this method is applied to real porous materials including spherical pack, sand pack, sandstone, limestone, and carbonate. The single/two‐phase transport properties predicted by the new method agree well with the experimental data and the direct simulation results. The proposed method improves the accuracy of pore network model (PNM) predictions significantly with a slight increase in computational cost. This local pore‐throat segmentation method may enhance the capability of PNM for more complicated applications. Key Points A pore‐throat segmentation method is proposed based on local hydraulic resistance equivalence The reliability and accuracy are validated via various benchmark cases The proposed method accurately predicts single/two‐phase transport properties