Reorganization of liquid menisci between solid grains during evaporation/condensation of water in a wet porous medium
Abstract
When a small amount of liquid water is present inside a granular medium, it is well known that it is located between the grains, and these menisci form like bridges. We consider in this paper a simple situation where all grains are perfect spheres and water is pure. A slight disorder is allowed for both their size and position, leading to variable gaps between the spheres, some of them being in contact. An initial given mass of water is introduced in the cell, and is distributed on all the gaps. The mass of water is taken as the main control parameter, and we study the reorganization of the liquid menisci, especially their surface area variation, because it is an important parameter for a global model of the evaporation phenomenon in wet porous media.
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