Flow of compressible fluid in porous elastic media

Abstract

Abstract A finite element formulation for flow of fluid in a porous elastic media has been derived from a Gurtin type variational principle. Biot's field equations for porous media have been used in which the constitutive relations include the compressibility of the fluid. It has been shown that by proper choice of the form of the compressibility of the fluid as a function of the state variables, this option of the formulation can be used to treat the partially saturated soil. The method is general with respect to geometry, boundary conditions and material properties. Finally, the results of a series of examples have been presented and compared with exact results to demonstrate accuracy and applicability.