Validation of Forchheimers Law for Flow through Porous Media with Converging Boundaries

Modifications to the Forchheimer equation, which describes the flow behavior through coarse porous media, to account for the convergence of streamlines are made and experimentally verified. The applicability of a resistance law relating friction factor and Reynolds number using the square root of intrinsic permeability as the characteristic length is examined for flow with converging boundaries, and theoretical curves similar to Moody diagram for pipe flow are developed. The effect of convergence of streamlines on the linear and nonlinear parameters is demonstrated.