ELASTIC INTERACTIONS BETWEEN EQUILIBRIUM PORES/HOLES IN POROUS MEDIA UNDER REMOTE STRESS

Practically all properties of porous media (elastic moduli, thermal conductivity, electrical resistivity, etc.) are subject to potentially significant and non-linear variations w.r.t. the degree of their porosity. This may be due, among other reasons, to the pore-to-pore interactions which stem from the elastic fields arising from the applied stresses. The nature of these interactions is disputed – whether they are attractive or repulsive among the pores – thus hindering the estimations about such property variations. Herein, a numerical solution is provided, devoid of the shortcomings of the previous models, showing unequivocally that in an externally stressed material with equilibrium pores (i.e. pores non-exerting any stresses on the surrounding matrix), the aforementioned interactions are repulsive, and (approximately) inversely proportional to the 4th power of the inter-pore distance.