Investigating the impacts of groundwater and anisotropy on thermal-hydro-mechanical coupling with multi-dimensional analysis

Abstract

This paper examines the thermo-hydro-mechanical (THM) coupling behavior of layered transversely isotropic media under axisymmetric and plane strain conditions by utilizing the transformed differential quadrature method (TDQM), taking groundwater into consideration. Initially, the coupled governing equations of layered transversely isotropic media in multi-dimensional coordinate systems are established with considering the influence of groundwater levels. Subsequently, appropriate integral transform methods are applied to derive ordinary differential equations under different coordinate systems. It can be seen that the equations in different coordinate systems after the discretization are similar. Boundary conditions and internal continuity conditions are defined through the stress-strain relationship in the transformed domains, which are integrated into the discretized equations to form the global matrix equations. After solving the matrix equations, this study verifies the solution and investigates the impact of groundwater levels and the key parameters of transverse isotropy, and compares the behaviors of the media in different coordinate systems.