Porescale

Pore-scale, sometimes written as pore-scale or porescale, refers to the length scale at which individual pores and the thin channels that connect them are resolved within a porous material. At this scale, the geometry of the pore space, including pore bodies, throats, surface roughness, and the wettability of solid grains, governs fluid behavior directly. The characteristic sizes are typically in the micrometer range for many natural and engineered porous media, though exact values depend on the material and imaging or modeling methods used.

Pore-scale studies combine high-resolution imaging with numerical modeling. Imaging techniques such as X-ray microtomography and focused ion beam scanning electron microscopy capture three-dimensional pore geometries, which can be analyzed to extract pore-size distributions, connectivity, and tortuosity. Numerical approaches include direct numerical simulation of multiphase flow using Navier–Stokes solvers, lattice Boltzmann methods, or volume-of-fluid techniques, as well as pore-network models that represent the pore space as a network of nodes and links. These pore-scale results inform upscaling to continuum models and help quantify properties like permeability, capillary pressure, and relative permeability.

Applications span geoscience, engineering, and materials science. In oil and gas, groundwater hydrology, and CO2 sequestration, pore-scale insights improve understanding of displacement efficiency and breakthrough risks. In materials science, pore-scale analysis aids in catalyst design, filtration membranes, and porous ceramics. Overall, pore-scale modeling links microscopic structure to macroscopic transport behavior.