Aging of porous media following fluid invasion, freezing, and thawing

A simple model of fluid invasion, freezing, and thawing in a porous medium is elaborated and investigated. This model is based on the invasion percolation model. The fluid freezing process is considered to destroy the internal structure of the porous medium. The evolution of the pore structure after several invasion-frost-thaw events (cycles) has been investigated numerically. The results are qualitatively consistent with experimental findings. The cluster size decreases with a power law as a function of invasion-frost-thaw iterations, Moreover, the geometry (fractal dimension) of percolating invasion clusters varies with the number of cycles. The successive percolation clusters are found to be self-avoiding with aging.