Spontaneous imbibition of a liquid into glass-fiber wicks is modeled using the single-phase Darcy's law after assuming a sharp flow-front marked by full saturation behind the front occurring in a transversely isotropic porous medium. An analytical expression for the height of the wicking flow-front as a function of time is tested through comprehensive experiments involving using eight different wicks and one oil as the wicking liquid. A good fit with experimental data is obtained without using any fitting parameter. The contact-angle is observed to be important for the success of the model—lower contact angle cases marked by higher capillary pressures were predicted the best. The proposed model provides a nice upper bound for all the wicks, thereby establishing its potential as a good tool to predict liquid absorption in glass-fiber wicks. However, the sharp-front model is unable to explain region of partial saturation, thereby necessitating the development of part II of this article series (Zarandi and Pillai, Spontaneous Imbibition of Liquid in Glass fiber wicks. Part II: Validation of a Diffuse-front Model. Submitted to AIChE journal 2017) using Richard's equation. © 2017 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 2017

中文翻译：

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玻璃纤维灯芯中液体的自发吸收。第一部分：前锋方法的用处

假定在横向各向同性多孔介质中出现的流动前部完全饱和后，使用单相达西定律对液体自发吸收到玻璃纤维芯中进行建模。通过全面的实验测试了芯吸流动前沿高度随时间变化的解析表达式，该综合实验涉及使用八种不同的芯吸和一种油作为芯吸液体。无需使用任何拟合参数即可获得与实验数据的良好拟合。观察到接触角对于模型的成功非常重要-以较高的毛细管压力为标志的较低接触角的情况被预测为最佳。所提出的模型为所有灯芯提供了一个很好的上限，从而确立了其作为预测玻璃纤维灯芯中液体吸收的良好工具的潜力。但是，锋利的前部模型无法解释部分饱和的区域，因此有必要开发本系列文章的第二部分（Zarandi和Pillai，玻璃纤维灯芯中液体的自发吸收。第二部分：扩散前部的验证模型。使用理查德方程式提交给AIChE期刊2017）。©2017美国化学工程师学会AIChE的Ĵ，2017年