Flows in porous media

Flows in porous media are the movement of fluids through interconnected voids in solids. Their rates and paths depend on pore geometry, fluid properties, and pressure or gravity.

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Darcy's law: An empirical relation connecting fluid flux in a porous material to pressure gradient, viscosity, and permeability. It describes the proportional pressure-driven flow regime in many porous materials.
Porosity: The fraction of a material's bulk volume occupied by void space. It measures available pore volume, though not how well pores connect.
Groundwater flow: The movement of water through saturated or partly saturated geological materials. Aquifers are porous formations whose flow governs water supply and contaminant transport.
Free-surface flow: Fluid motion with a boundary exposed to a gas or vacuum, such as flow in an open channel. Its flow paths are not confined by a solid pore network.
Permeability: A measure of how readily a porous material transmits fluid under a pressure gradient. It captures how connected pore geometry controls bulk flow.
Pore-size distribution: The distribution of pore dimensions within a porous material. Pore sizes influence capillary forces and the routes fluids can take.
Reservoir engineering: The engineering of hydrocarbon reservoirs to estimate and improve fluid production. Production forecasts depend on multiphase flow through reservoir rock.
Molecular diffusion: Net molecular transport caused by random motion down a concentration gradient. Diffusion transports dissolved substances even when bulk fluid flow is absent.
Kozeny–Carman equation: An empirical relation estimating permeability from porosity and grain surface area in granular materials. It links measurable grain structure to the permeability governing flow.
Wettability: The tendency of a solid surface to be preferentially contacted by one fluid rather than another. It controls which fluid coats pore walls and how phases arrange.