Flow Through a Deformable Porous Material

Abstract

A model is presented to describe the one-dimensional flow of an incompressible fluid through a deformable porous material. The model is based on the Forchheimer extension of the Darcy law for flows through incompressible media, where the Forchheimer coefficients are functions of the local stress. Experiments to determine the stress-dependence of the coefficients for polyurethane foam specimens are described. The coefficients are then used in the model to predict the mass flow rate through long polyurethane specimens as a function of the applied pressure difference across the material. The predictions of the model are compared with experimental observations.