A NOVEL PERMEABILITY MODEL IN DAMAGED TREE-LIKE BIFURCATING NETWORKS CONSIDERING THE INFLUENCE OF ROUGHNESS

Abstract

The seepage in tree-like bifurcating networks is a very common phenomenon in nature. The research on the transport characteristics of tree-like bifurcating networks has always been a hot topic. In this paper, a novel permeability model for fluid flow in damaged tree-like bifurcating networks is proposed. In the proposed model, the influence of roughness on permeability is considered by means of the fractal method. It is found that the permeability is not only related to the structural parameters of the network but also related to the damaged position and the number of damaged tubes at the damaged position. The effects of these parameters and damaged structure on permeability are discussed separately. The results show that the permeability reduces along with an increase in the roughness level, the length ratio, the number of damaged tubes, and the number of total bifurcating levels. Another major finding is that the permeability increases with an increase in the diameter ratio. Besides, we found that the damaged position and the number of damaged tubes at the damaged position have an important effect on the permeability. Increasing the number of damaged tubes and bringing the damaged position close to the front end of the network will reduce the permeability. Compared with the undamaged network, the permeability of damaged network has a significant decline. The proposed model may provide potential applications for the analysis of fluid flow in damaged tree-like bifurcating network.