Water proton relaxation studies of air-water distributions in beds of randomly packed monodisperse glass microspheres

Abstract

Nuclear magnetic resonance water proton transverse and longitudinal relaxation time distributions are measured for randomly packed beds of monodisperse glass microspheres of varying water content and sphere radius. The changes in the relaxation time distributions are compared with various models of pore emptying. It is found that different models apply depending on the sphere radius and on the balance of capillary and gravitational forces in the beds. The results highlight the need for numerical calculations of the relaxation behaviour of water in the corners of regular octahedral, tetrahedral and triangular pores found between packed spheres.