A coupled model for water flow, airflow and heat flow in deformable porous media

Abstract

A fully coupled numerical model to simulate the complex behaviour of soil deformation, water flow, airflow, and heat flow in porous media is developed. The following thermal effects are taken into account: heat transfer through conduction and convection, flow, as well as viscosity and density variation of the fluids due to temperature gradients. The governing equations in terms of soil displacements, water and air pressures, and temperature are coupled non‐linear partial differential equations and are solved by the finite element method. Two examples are presented to demonstrate the model performances.