Porosity and viscous resistance in porous media
 

Hello Everyone,

I am modeling flow though a bed filled with coarse aggregate. The way I am modeling is I am providing the viscous loss and inertial loss. I have some queries. I hope someone can answer these questions.

1) I know the porosity and hydraulic conductivity , K(cm/s) for the bed. So I calculated the permeability(k) from conductivity(K=kg/kinematic visc) and made inverse of that , and provided that as viscous resistance. Now my question is, since I am providing the resistance ( or since Fluent needs this input directly), what is the function of providing porosity again as an input? Does FLUENT use the value of porosity at all? If yes, when and where?

2) Is there any way I can calculate the inertial resistance from hydraulic conductivity also?

3) Since I only have porosity and hydraulic conductivity value for porous bed, if I don't use the method described in 1, Using Ergun equation is the only option for my case. When Ergun equation is applicable i.e. for laminar/turbulent or both?

Thanks in advance.

Regards,
Tanjina