Darcy’s and Forchheimer’s laws in practice. Part 2. The numerical model

Our study is based on a column experiment of water flow through a porous granular bed. In Part 1 we propose eight methods to derive parameters of flow models based on measurement data. These parameters are permeability and Forchheimer coefficient for Darcy’s and Forchheimer’s laws. The approach presented in this part uses two numerical models to perform simulations of flow. One model is based on the Finite Element Method implemented in the authors’ code. The second model, which is ANSYS/Fluent package, uses the Finite Volume Method. Results of numerical computations are compared with experimental data that allows determination of the best method of parameter evaluation (in which the error was less than 3% over the whole range of filtration velocities). The problem of identification of ranges of applicability of the Darcy’s and Forchheimer’s laws is also addressed. In the conclusions, a set of guidelines is given, which should facilitate planning a similar experiment and its computational processing.