Hydraulic and thermal conduction phenomena in soils at the particle-scale: Towards realistic FEM simulations

Abstract

This paper summarizes a method to characterize conduction properties in soils at the particle-scale. The method set the bases for an alternative way to estimate conduction parameters such as thermal conductivity and hydraulic conductivity, with the potential application to hard-to-obtain samples, where traditional experimental testing on large enough specimens becomes much more expensive. The technique is exemplified using 3D synthetic grain packings generated with discrete element methods, from which 3D granular images are constructed. Images are then imported into the finite element analyses to solve the corresponding governing partial differential equations of hydraulic and thermal conduc..