Progress in Porous Media Research

A porous material is a solid that is saturated by an interconnected network of pores filled with liquid or gas. It is an inorganic or organic cross linked or uncross linked containing pores of all sizes. The pore network is assumed to be continuous, forming two interpenetrating continua such as in a sponge. Examples of porous media range from porous silicon which is porous on the subnanometer scale to limestone caves and underground river systems on the kilometer scale. In this book, fractal structures are generated to model the structures of natural porous media. It also presents the fundamental theory of transient infinate elements, which can be used to effectively and eficiently simulate heat transfer and mass transport problems in fluid-saturated porous media of infinate domains, and addresses recent advances in the intergrated modeling strategies of mass transfer and geo-mechanics in porous media.