Effect of artificial aggregate shapes on the porosity, tortuosity and permeability of their packings

Natural aggregates such as gravel are used in many construction applications for which porous structures are needed, for example to allow water drainage. However, the range of attainable porosities is limited due to the ir regular shapes of natural aggregates. Here we investigate artificial aggregates of engineered shapes, which allow structures with porosities exceeding 0.7. In this study packings of a variety of artificial aggregate shapes are ex amined by both numerical and experimental techniques. We can establish a correlation between the porosity of a packing and the sphericity of the aggregates. Furthermore, we confirm that the Carman-Kozeny correlation can be used to predict accurately the permeability of a packing for a wide range of porosities (0.33–0.78). Establish ment of this basic relationship between the porosity and permeability of a packing is critical for the design of ar tificial aggregates for novel applications such as energy harvesting from pavements. ; ISSN:0032-5910 ; ISSN:1873-328X