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Investigating the elegance of empty space

A recent study presents an approach for characterizing and quantifying the pore space in assemblies of particles, enabling research into pore-scale flow physics and insight into the interplay between the solid and void phases in granular materials.

Granular materials—that is, assemblies of discrete particles with interstitial voids between them—are everywhere. The soil beneath our feet, agricultural grains, pharmaceuticals and the metallic powders used in additive manufacturing are all granular materials. They all share a fundamental characteristic: they can be broadly partitioned into two phases: solid and void. These two phases have different roles in the way that granular materials respond to external stimuli or perturbations. For example, as you take a walk along the beach, the solid matrix of sand grains supports your weight while the pores allow the dissipation and flow of water from crashing waves. There is also interplay between these phases: if the pore space is filled with water, that water is squeezed out of the pore space when you walk across the wet sand. These systems—mechanical, hydraulic and mechano-hydraulic—are exceedingly complex and exhibit a range of emergent behaviors that are determined by topological properties at the scale of individual pores and solid particles. Fast, reliable and robust quantification of the solid and void phases is science-enabling technology. Characterization of pore space has historically proved particularly challenging because the extent of a given pore is not well defined in the way it is for a particle. In this issue of Nature Computational Science, Riley et al. present an approach for the characterization of pores and pore networks in granular media based on identifying and locating the spatial indicators of pore boundaries1.

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Fig. 1: The centerlines of pore space in 2D compared to traditional particle-centric tessellations.

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  1. School of Civil and Construction Engineering, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, USA

    T. Matthew Evans

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Evans, T.M. Investigating the elegance of empty space.
Nat Comput Sci (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43588-023-00554-8

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  • Published: 21 November 2023

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s43588-023-00554-8

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