University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center Flow and Deformation: Understanding the Assumptions and Thermodynamics, Updated

Coupling flow and deformation is of interest when modeling settling due to pumping water or oil, compaction due to construction, or, in other fields, modeling soft tissue, bones, or man-made porous materials. The modeling usually combines the Conservation of Mass equations for all phases, Darcy’s law for flow, the Terzaghi’s principal of effective stress, and a stress-strain relation. Here we discuss the assumptions and thermodynamic framework underlying this formulation for single-phase flow and discuss the need to generalize the traditional model.