Home – Home – Jornals – Journal of Applied Mechanics and Technical Physics 2026 number 1

An original method for constructing a model porous medium is proposed. The approach is based on a well-known and widely used capillary model that accounts for pore-size distribution. The porous medium model is constructed by dividing the medium into thin layers perpendicular to the assumed flow direction, with capillary segments whose characteristics are determined using standard core analysis methods. The layers are probabilistically interconnected, forming parallel capillaries with variable cross sections. Within the inertialess flow approximation, the effective diameter of the capillaries is calculated. A pair of connected capillaries of different diameters is then replaced by a new capillary with this effective diameter. After repeating this operation iteratively, the original porous medium is represented by a bundle of parallel capillaries of uniform diameter. The theoretical aspects of the method are described, the adopted assumptions are substantiated, and the limitations of the model's applicability are identified. Results of absolute permeability calculations for two rock samples are presented and compared with those obtained using the classical capillary model. The proposed model is shown to provide a more accurate match between calculated and experimental data.