On the transition from creeping to inertial flow in arrays of cylinders

Many important natural processes involving flow through porous media are characterized by large filtration velocity. Therefore, it is important to know when the transition from viscous to the inertial flow regime actually occurs in order to obtain accurate models for these processes. In this paper, a detailed computational study of laminar and inertial, incompressible, Newtonian fluid flow across an array of cylinders is presented. Due to the non-linear contribution of inertia to the transport of momentum at the pore scale, we observe a typical departure from Darcy's law at sufficiently high Reynolds number (Re). Our numerical results show that the weak inertia correction to Darcy's law is not a square or a cubic term in velocity, as it is in the Forchheimer equation. Best fitted functions for the macroscopic properties of porous media in terms of microstructure and porosity are derived and comparisons are made to the Ergun and Forchheimer relations to examine their relevance in the given porosity and Re range. The results from this study can be used for verification and validation of more advanced models for particle fluid interaction and for the coupling of the discrete element method (DEM) with finite element method (FEM).