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Today's practice of interpreting Hg capillary pressure curves — a widespread method in porosimetry — is generally unsatisfactory. This has already been demonstrated by Fatt. First, the saturation branch of such a curve is interpreted using the concept of a pore space model in which essential features of a network structure are disregarded. Second, the data provided by the desaturation branch are not used. Distributions of radii of capillaries within porous materials derived by this technique are usually incorrect in that the frequencies of occurrence of the greater radii turn out too small, those of the smaller radii too large. We present a more reliable approach which constrains radii frequency ranges for the Hg saturated pore space and for both the part of the pore space that desaturates and the part that traps mercury when Hg pressure is released. The pore space may be of an arbitrary geometrical structure, the radii distribution may be continuous. Also, the Hg desaturation may enable one to distinguish experimentally between structural and contact angle hysteresis.

Magnetic reconnection is one of the most effective particle acceleration processes. Usually this process is described in a simplified analytical way. This implies a homogeneous electrical field, which has its origin in the 2-D-description of the reconnection mechanism.

As shown previously by the author, the relations between formation factor, permeability, and porosity can be expressed in statistical parameters of the microscopic pore system. A number of other macroscopically measurable quantities depend on those same parameters. Thus, by proper combination of these quantities, it should be possible to solve for those parameters, that cannot be retrieved by direct methods. In this article, the dependencies on these statistical parameters of the capillarity with imbibition and drainage, the irreducible water saturation, the flow dispersion with miscible displacement, and quantities that are directly observable at ground surfaces or thin sections, are preliminarily studied as a preparation for possible practical measurements. (50 refs.)

The knowledge of hydraulic and electric properties of porous media and the relations between them is essential for the quantitative evaluation of electric well logs and the solution of other reservoir engineering problems. The state of the art in this field is not yet satisfying. Theories still show considerable discrepancies with practice due to oversimplified model approaches. Empirical relations are either too coarse, not fully determined, or valid under specific geological and geographical conditions only. This article deals with the development of a general theory of the electric and hydraulic resistance behavior of porous media on the basis of a very general statistical network model. A general solution of the relations between formation factor, permeability, and porosity is presented by means of a rigorous mathematical treatment of two limiting cases of such a network. The solution shows that the product of the formation factor and the permeability can be expressed in the expectation values and the variation coefficients of pore channel cross section and shape factor and by a network factor, that depends on the mesh texture of the network. This network factor is in the range zero to one. It is further shown that the path length increase enters both the electric and the hydraulic tortuosity by its square.

Motivated by the noise-boundary layer transition problem in supersonic flow, the interaction between incoming aerodynamic noise and the laminar boundary layer was studied. The noise field was modeled as a Mach wave radiation field consisting of discrete waves emanating from coherent turbulent entities moving downstream within the supersonic turbulent boundary layer. The individual disturbances are likened to miniature sonic booms and the laminar boundary layer is strafed by the waves as the sources move downstream. The mean, autocorrelation, and power spectral density of the field are expressed in terms of the wave shapes and their average arrival rates. The emphasis in the interaction analysis is on the behavior of the shocklets in the noise field. The shocklets are shown to be focused by the laminar boundary layer in its outer region. Borrowing wave-propagation terminology, this region is termed the caustic region. Using scaling laws from sonic boom work, focus factors at the caustic are estimated to vary from 2 to 6 for incoming shocklet strengths of 1 to .01 percent of the free stream pressure level. The situation regarding experimental evidence of the caustic region is reviewed. It is not clear whether the focusing effectively promotes early transition. Additional observations concerning the interaction problem are presented.