Finite volume discretization for poroelastic media with fractures modeled by contact mechanics

A fractured poroelastic body is considered where the opening of the fractures is governed by a nonpenetration law, whereas slip is described by a Coulomb‐type friction law. This physical model results in a nonlinear variational inequality problem. The variational inequality is rewritten as a complementary function, and a semismooth Newton method is used to solve the system of equations. For the discretization, we use a hybrid scheme where the displacements are given in terms of degrees of freedom per element, and an additional Lagrange multiplier representing the traction is added on the fracture faces. The novelty of our method comes from combining the Lagrange multiplier from the hybrid scheme with a finite volume discretization of the poroelastic Biot equation, which allows us to directly impose the inequality constraints on each subface. The convergence of the method is studied for several challenging geometries in 2D and 3D, showing that the convergence rates of the finite volume scheme do not deteriorate when it is coupled to the Lagrange multipliers. Our method is especially attractive for the poroelastic problem because it allows for a straightforward coupling between the matrix deformation, contact conditions, and fluid pressure.publishedVersio

Robust preconditioners for a new stabilized discretization of the poroelastic equations

In this paper, we present block preconditioners for a stabilized discretization of the poroelastic equations developed in [C. Rodrigo, X. Hu, P. Ohm, J. Adler, F. Gaspar, and L. Zikatanov, Comput. Methods Appl. Mech. Engrg., 341 (2018), pp. 467-484]. The discretization is proved to be well-posed with respect to the physical and discretization parameters and thus provides a framework to develop preconditioners that are robust with respect to such parameters as well. We construct both norm-equivalent (diagonal) and field-of-value-equivalent (triangular) preconditioners for both the stabilized discretization and a perturbation of the stabilized discretization, which leads to a smaller overall problem after static condensation. Numerical tests for both two-and three-dimensional problems confirm the robustness of the block preconditioners with respect to the physical and discretization parameters