Direct link between wettability and acoustic signature in granular porous media
Abstract
Granular porous media are widespread in natural environments. Their mechanical behavior critically depends on the content and distribution of pore fluids, which is of particular significance in subsurface resource recovery processes such as enhanced oil recovery and geological CO₂ sequestration. While evidence shows that wettability affects elastic waves by tuning percolating force chains, a quantitative relation between the contact angle as a measure of wettability and acoustic signatures remains elusive. To overcome this knowledge gap, in this study, ultrasonic experiments were performed on pre-stressed, uniformly mixed water-granular packings composed of quasi-identical beads, spanning a wide range of contact angles across the full saturation range. The different wettability conditions of the granular samples were achieved by using beads of different materials and applying wettability-reversal surface treatments. A critical saturation was established, identified by the emergence of a high frequency liquid-bridge-induced wave in the waveform records, which decreases with increasing contact angle, exhibiting a near-linear correlation in densely packed granular media. To substantiate the experimental findings, the upper and lower bound of this critical saturation were constructed based on a Hainesin-sphere approximation for a regular unit cell. Even though these similar bead packings make up an idealized granular medium, the results provide impetus for inferring the contact angles under in-situ conditions using widely deployable acoustic techniques.
Document Type: Original article
Cited as: Chen, Y., Fu, L. -Y, Müller, T. M. Direct link between wettability and acoustic signature in granular porous media. Advances in Geo-Energy Research, 2026, 20(1): 16-26. https://doi.org/10.46690/ager.2026.04.02
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.46690/ager.2026.04.02Keywords:
Wettability, acoustic response, granular porous media, saturation, ultrasonic experimentReferences
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Copyright (c) 2026 Yangpu Chen, Li-Yun Fu, Tobias M. Müller
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