Wicking of Liquids in Porous Media Advances and Applications

1. An Overview of One-Dimensional Capillary Rise Dynamics in Porous Media

Javed I. Siddique and Daniel M. Anderson

2. Richards Equation for Modeling Wicking in Porous Media

Abul Borkot Md Rafiqul Hasan and Krishna M. Pillai

3. Modeling Unsaturated Flow in Thin Multi-Layered Media Made of Absorbent Swelling Porous Materials

Ahmed Kaffel and Krishna M. Pillai

4. Imbibition in Nanopores, Nanochannels and Nanoporous Media

Olivier Vincent and Simon Gravelle

5. Numerical Simulation of Wicking Flow into Swelling Porous Media: Theory and CFD Approach

Shivam Salokhe, Ryan Masoodi, and Mohammad Rahmati

6. Numerical Simulation of Wicking Flow into Swelling Porous Media: Some Applications and Case Studies

Shivam Salokhe, Ryan Masoodi, and Mohammad Rahmati

7. Non-Isothermal Wicking in Porous Media

Abul Borkot Md Rafiqul Hasan and Krishna M. Pillai

8. Wicking in Energy Applications

Rajalingam A and Pallab Sinha Mahapatra

9. Wicking in Fibrous Reinforcements and Its Role for Composite Manufacturing

Monica Francesca Pucci and Pierre-Jacques Liotier

10. Sponge-Like Porous Bodies

Ana Barcot, Staffan Lundström, Sofia Larsson, and Lian Lundy

Biography

Krishna M. Pillai, PhD, is a Professor at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee and the Director of the Laboratory for Flow and Transport Studies in Porous Media, USA. One of Dr. Pillai’s primary research interests lies in wicking and evaporation. He is a co-editor of Wicking in Porous Materials: Traditional and Modern Modeling Approaches (CRC Press, 2013), and the present volume is his second book on this topic. He has published extensively in reputed technical journals and presented his work at numerous international conferences. Dr. Pillai has collaborated with several companies, including SC Johnson, Proctor & Gamble, and Kimberly-Clark, improving product design through funded research, training, and consultancies. He was awarded the National Science Foundation CAREER grant in 2004. Dr. Pillai earned his doctorate at the University of Delaware and completed postdoctoral research at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He earned BTech and MTech degrees in mechanical engineering at IIT Kanpur, India.

Ryan Masoodi, PhD, is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering in the College of Architecture, Design, and Engineering at Thomas Jefferson University, USA. He earned a PhD in mechanical engineering at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the Laboratory for Flow and Transport Studies in Porous Media. Dr. Masoodi’s research focuses on transport phenomena in porous materials, with particular emphasis on capillarity-driven wicking and flow in swelling porous media, integrating theoretical modeling, laboratory experimentation, and high-fidelity computational fluid dynamics. He has published extensively on wicking, permeability evolution, and mold filling in natural fiber composites, authoring more than 60 peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, and conference papers. Dr. Masoodi is a co-editor of Wicking in Porous Materials: Traditional and Modern Modeling Approaches (CRC Press, 2013). His research has been supported by multiple federal and state grants as well as industry-sponsored projects.

Abul Borkot Md Rafiqul Hasan is a PhD candidate in mechanical engineering at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, USA, working in the Laboratory for Flow and Transport Studies in Porous Media under Professor Krishna M. Pillai. His research focuses on fluid and thermal transport in porous media, including capillary-driven wicking, evaporation, non-isothermal transport, and contaminant migration in the vadose zone. His work integrates carefully designed experiments with analytical and numerical modeling, including Darcy-scale and Richards-equation-based formulations, as well as multiphysics simulations. Abul Borkot Md Rafiqul Hasan has authored and co-authored multiple peer-reviewed journal publications and book chapters in heat and mass transfer, porous media, and thermal-fluid sciences. His broader interests include energy systems, environmental transport processes, and data-driven modeling for complex transport phenomena. He has received several academic honors and fellowships during his doctoral studies and has been actively involved in teaching and mentoring undergraduate students. His long-term goal is to pursue an academic career in thermal-fluids and transport phenomena, contributing to both research and engineering education.