Modeling flow and deformation in porous media from pore-scale to the Darcy-scale

Abstract

In this paper we address the connections between the computational models of coupled flow and mechanical deformation in soils at the Darcy-scale and pore-scale. At the Darcy scale the Biot model requires data including permeability which is traditionally provided by experiments and empirical measurements. At the pore-scale we consider the Discrete Element Method (DEM) to generate physically realistic assemblies of the particles, and we follow up with the Stokes flow model. Next we apply upscaling to obtain the permeabilities which we find dependent on the deformation. We outline the workflow with its challenges and methods, and present results which show, e.g., hysteretic dependence of the permeability and porosity on the load. We also show how to incorporate the deformation dependent permeability in a nonlinear Biot model, and illustrate with computational results.