title: Spontaneous imbibition in disordered porous solids: a theoretical study of helium in silica aerogels.
abstract: We present a theoretical study of spontaneous imbibition of liquid (4)He in silica aerogels focusing on the effect of porosity on the fluid dynamical behavior. We adopt a coarse-grained three-dimensional lattice-gas description like in previous studies of gas adsorption and capillary condensation and use a dynamical mean-field theory, assuming that capillary disorder predominates over permeability disorder as in recent phase-field models of spontaneous imbibition. Our results reveal a remarkable connection between imbibition and adsorption as also suggested by recent experiments. The imbibition front is always preceded by a precursor film, and the classical Lucas-Washburn √t scaling law is generally recovered, although some deviations may exist at large porosity. Moreover, the interface roughening is modified by wetting and confinement effects. Our results suggest that the interpretation of the recent experiments should be revised.
authors.affiliation: GIT-SPEC, CEA Saclay, 91191 Gif-sur-Yvette Cedex, France.
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Leoni
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Kierlik
authors.forename: M L
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Rosinberg
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Tarjus