Representative elementary volume analysis of porous media using X-ray computed tomography

Abstract The concept of representative elementary volume (REV) is critical to understand and predict the behaviour of effective parameters of complex heterogeneous media (e.g., soils) in a multiscale manner. Porosity is commonly used to define the REV of a given sample. In this paper we investigated whether the use of a REV for porosity can be used as a REV for other parameters such as particle size distribution, local void ratio and coordination number. X-ray computed tomography was used to obtain 3D images (i.e., volumes) of natural sand systems with different particle size distributions. 3D volumes of four different systems were obtained and a REV analysis was performed for these parameters utilizing robust 3D algorithms. Findings revealed that the REVmin for porosity may not be adequate to be considered as a REV for parameters such as particle size distribution, local void ratio and coordination number. The REVmin for these parameters was observed to be larger than the REVmin for porosity. Heterogeneity of the systems was found to be an important factor to determine the REV for the parameters analyzed in this paper. The REV analysis revealed that as the uniformity coefficient increased, a larger volume was required to obtain the REVmin for the distribution of particle sizes and coordination number whereas a smaller volume was required to obtain the REVmin for local void ratio. Therefore, determination of the REV for parameters described in this paper or any microscale parameter of concern should not be derived based on REV for porosity and should be determined based on their distributions over different volumes.