Characterization of anisotropy in porous media by means of linear intercept measurements

The focus of this paper is the description and identification of the anisotropic microstructure of porous media. To begin, a general discussion on fabric descriptors employing linear intercept measurements is provided and a new fabric measure, referred to as areal pore size distribution, is proposed. Subsequently, the issue of the identification of fabric descriptors is addressed and fabric detection algorithms, incorporating 3D computed tomography images, are described. Finally, examples of identification of the microstructure of trabecular bone samples are provided and the performance of different fabric descriptors is assessed.