New Insights into the Physics of Digital Porous Media
A special issue of Applied Sciences (ISSN 2076-3417). This special issue belongs to the section "Earth Sciences".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 October 2026 | Viewed by 20
Special Issue Editors
Interests: digital rocks; multi-scale; pore structure; macroscopic characterization
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: unconventional reservoirs stimulation; rock micromechanics; microproppants
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Porous media are ubiquitous in both natural and engineered systems, and their macroscopic behavior is fundamentally governed by complex pore structures spanning multiple length scales. Understanding and predicting transport, reaction, and mechanical responses in such materials remain challenging because heterogeneity, connectivity, and multiphase/multiphysics couplings are difficult to quantify and model in a consistent manner. With rapid advances in digital imaging and computational techniques, pore-scale imaging, visualization, and quantitative analysis are enabling more rigorous links between microstructure and effective properties, thereby supporting both scientific discovery and engineering design.
Digital approaches to porous media bridge multiple disciplines, including geoscience, materials science, physics, mechanics, computational modeling, and machine learning. Over the past decades, major progress in imaging, reconstruction, segmentation, simulation, and upscaling has had a significant impact on both academic research and industrial practice. Nevertheless, key challenges remain, such as (i) accurate and efficient multiscale image acquisition and registration, (ii) robust phase/mineral identification and quantitative microstructural descriptors, (iii) physics-consistent numerical modeling and uncertainty quantification, and (iv) trustworthy integration of machine learning with pore-scale physics for prediction, optimization, and design.
Therefore, this Special Issue aims to collect original research articles and comprehensive review papers that clarify the state of the art in digital porous media—from image acquisition and reconstruction to pore-scale/multiscale modeling and final characterization of effective properties. All relevant contributions are welcome.
Dr. Hongyang Ni
Dr. Chengpeng Zhang
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
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Keywords
- rock physics
- reservoir characterization
- image segmentation methods
- multi-scale
- pore structure
- digital rock analysis
- machine learning
- macroscopic characterization
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Related Special Issue
- New Insights into Digital Rock Physics in Applied Sciences (8 articles)
