Effect of Biot's coefficient and fluid properties on isothermal H-M coupled consolidation analysis of porous media

Abstract

In this study, a hydraulic-mechanical (H-M) coupling model was implemented, which considers porous media as a deforming porous continuum where fluid flow is taken into account. The primary variables are the time-dependent pore pressure and displacement of the solid skeleton. Physical laws, including the linear momentum balance and mass conservation, are applied to describe the corresponding processes as mechanics and fluid flow occurring within the porous media during the consolidation progress. The general field equations were derived with the aid of a finite element formulation and generalized trapezoidal method to deal with the governing equations in spatial and time domains. In the numerical analysis, the massive diversity of time domain of coupled problems was discussed in detail. In addition, a convergence condition for the partitioned approach applied to deal with a typical matter was proposed. A numerical example was executed to simulate a one-dimensional isothermal consolidation in which a hydraulic-mechanical coupling is mathematically adopted. Finally, a series of parametric studies was carried out to indicate the effect of Biot's coefficient and fluid properties on the isothermal consolidation of porous media. The results of parametric studies show that the consolidation of porous media can be expedited with compressible particles and less compressible fluids than those with incompressible particles and more compressible fluids, respectively.