A connected-component-labeling-based approach to virtual porosimetry

Analyzing the pore-size distribution of porous materials, made up of an aggregation of interconnected pores, is a demanding task. Mercury intrusion porosimetry (MIP) is a physical method that intrudes mercury into a sample at increasing pressures to obtain a pore-size histogram. This method has been simulated in-silice with several approaches requiring prior computation of a skeleton.We present a new approach to simulate MIP that does not require skeleton computation. Our method is an iterative process that considers the diameters corresponding to pressures. At each iteration, geometric tests detect throats for the corresponding diameter and a CCL process collects the region invaded by the mercury. Additionally, a new decomposition model called CUDB, is used. This is suitable for computing the throats and performs better with the CCL algorithm than a voxel model. Our approach obtains the pore-size distribution of the porous medium, and the corresponding pore graph.

Simulation of a progressive mercury intrusion into the porous space of a stone sample. Left to right: complete pore space; invaded region at the highest pressure; invaded region at a medium pressure; invaded region at the lowest pressure; and putting all detected pores together.Figure optionsDownload as PowerPoint slideHighlights
► We present a new CCL-based method to simulate Mercury Intrusion Porosimetry (MIP), which avoids the skeleton computation.
► Avoiding the skeleton computation, our method achieves a noticeable reduction in time.
► We devise a new decomposition model, CUDB as a compact version of the existing OUDB model.
► The narrowing throat computation makes possible to separate regions corresponding to different diameters.