Fractal description of microstructures and properties of dynamically evolving porous media

Transport through porous media is encountered in several engineering and biological applications. The porous media can be subjected to changes in structure owing to deposition, erosion, swelling or shrinkage which, in turn, affects the transport properties of the media. A dynamic fractal model (DFM) is developed to describe the evolution in pore structure undergoing deposition using fractal dimensions and to predict the changes in the effective diffusivity in terms of the dynamic fractal dimensions. Evolving microstructures undergoing deposition are analyzed at various saturation levels to determine the effective diffusivity using the dynamic fractal model. The effective diffusivity values of the evolving porous media are compared against existing data in the literature.