Analysis of Relationships Between Permeability, Pressure on the Solids, and Porosity for Calcium Carbonate

This study aims to evaluate the constitutive equations for pressure on the solids and permeability of porous media consisting of calcium carbonates with different degrees of polydispersity. The constitutive relations are intended to assist in the modeling and simulation of sedimentation operations when theory of mixtures of continuum mechanics is used. In this work, a porous media was obtained after the complete sedimentation of aqueous suspensions of calcium carbonate. The gamma-ray attenuation technique was used, which allowed the realization of measurements of the distribution of porosity in the sediment before and after liquid percolation. The experimental results showed a considerable degree of compressibility for calcium carbonates, and significant deviations from the Kozeny-Carman correlation when the carbonates were used to express permeability. Therefore, the use of the incompressibility hypothesis for this solid in equations that model sedimentation may not be a viable consideration. Overall, this study provides relevant information about sedimentation for situations in which the formation of compressible sediments occurs.