Flow Study in a Double Porosity Medium Containing Ellipsoidal Occluded Macro-voids

This paper presents an analytical study of fluid flow in a porous medium presenting pores of two different length scales: at the smallest or microscopic scale, the presence of connected voids confers a porous medium structure to the material investigated, while at the upper or mesoscopic scale, macro-pores are present. This microstructure is employed to represent the progressive opening of inter-aggregate pore spaces observed in natural compacted montmorillonites polluted by heavy metal ions. Three-dimensional analytical expressions are rigorously derived for pore fluid velocity and excess pore fluid pressure within the porous matrix, around an occluded ellipsoidal inter-aggregate void. The eccentricity ratio is employed to characterize the geometrical shape of the ellipsoidal void, while its orientation with respect to the inflow in the far field is determined by the dip angle θ. As an application, we investigate the flow focusing effect for varying eccentricity ratios and dip angles.