ABSTRACT
This chapter describes scientific research in relation to fingering phenomena in soils, as well as applications of fractal theory, invasion percolation theory and imaging techniques as non-destructive and advanced methods in the study of such phenomena. The tomography and imaging techniques employed are already available. Through nuclear magnetic resonance as well as through X-ray, and presented very innovative and encouraging results for the study of fingering phenomena in soils and porous media in general, allowing us, among other things, to witness, non-destructively, the three-dimensional and aleatory character of the phenomena. Invasion percolation by sites, was modified to follow, in two dimensions, the fingering phenomenon in soils. For fine-textured soils the structure of the fingers is nonfractal, whereas for coarse-textured soils the structure of the fingers presents statistically self-affine or fractal characteristics. In addition to these results, it was also possible to introduce a modified theory of invasion percolation, so as to simulate the fingers structure.
