A general formulation for finite element analysis of flow through a porous deformable medium


Miloš Kojić, Nenad Filipović, Srboljub Mijailović




We consider a coupled problem of deformation of porous solid, with flow of compressible fluid. We transform the governing equations of the problem to the corresponding finite element relations so that the nodal point variables in our general formulation are displacements of solid, fluid pore pressure, and relative velocity of fluid. According to this formulation we can include general boundary conditions for solid, relative velocity of fluid and fluid pressure. This is one of the main advantages of our formulation with respect to others given in literature. Numerical examples are solved by our general-purpose FE package PAK, and are taken from geomechanics and biomechanics. The results are compared with those available in the literature, demonstrating accuracy and generality of the presented procedure.