Effect of X-ray $$\mu$$ μ CT Resolution on the Computation of Permeability and Dispersion Coefficient for Granular Soils

X-ray micro-computed tomography ( $$\mu$$ CT) can produce realistic 3D-images of the pore structure of a material. Extracting its geometry enables the computation of effective properties of the material—such as the permeability (k) and the hydrodynamic dispersion coefficient ( $$D_h$$ )—, through the solutions of the Stokes equation (SE) and Advection-Diffusion equation (ADE), respectively. In this study, the effect of the image resolution on these properties is discussed. For such purpose, four different resolutions are evaluated for both a real sample of Fontainebleau sand and a numerically generated sample created by degrading the Fontainebleau image with highest resolution. The SE was computed using the commercial software GeoDict. To solve the ADE, a Finite Volume software was developed which includes a high order total variation diminishing scheme for advection. The analysis of dispersion was based on numerical breakthrough curves. Our model was tested in a large range of Peclet numbers (Pe) and travel distances, accurately describing the transition between diffusion and advection dominated regimes of dispersion. The $$D_h$$ exhibits a linear increase with travel distance for Pe $$> 10$$ . This classical effect increases with increasing Pe. The percentage change on k and $$D_h$$ increases with decreasing resolution in agreement with the corresponding behavior of porosity, specific surface and pore size distributions. The images directly scaled with the $$\mu$$ CT showed more discrepancy than the numerically scaled images. The criteria to estimate the quality of permeability from the pore size distribution proposed on our previous study remains valid. The $$D_h$$ is less sensitive to resolution than k.