Double Porosity Models for Liquid Filtration in Incompressible Poroelastic Media

TL;DR

This paper derives a double porosity model for liquid filtration in fractured poroelastic media using homogenization theory, resulting in a rigorous justification of the Biot--Terzaghi system for complex crack-pore structures.

Contribution

It provides a rigorous homogenization derivation of the Biot--Terzaghi system for double porosity models in fractured media, including the case of an absolutely rigid body.

Findings

Derivation of the Biot--Terzaghi system from microscopic models.

Validation of the double porosity model via homogenization.

Extension to rigid body filtration scenarios.

Abstract

Double porosity models for the liquid filtration in a naturally fractured reservoir is derived from the homogenization theory. The governing equations on the microscopic level consist of the stationary Stokes system for an incompressible viscous fluid, occupying a crack-pore space (liquid domain), and stationary Lame equations for an incompressible elastic solid skeleton, coupled with corresponding boundary conditions on the common boundary "solid skeleton-liquid domain". We suppose that the liquid domain is a union of two independent systems of cracks (fissures) and pores, and that the dimensionless size $\delta$ of pores depends on the dimensionless size $\varepsilon$ of cracks: $\delta=\varepsilon^{r}$ with $r>1$. The rigorous justification is fulfilled for homogenization procedure as the dimensionless size of the cracks tends to zero, while the solid body is geometrically periodic. As the result we derive the well-known Biot -- Terzaghi system of liquid filtration in poroelastic media, which consists of the usual Darcy law for the liquid in cracks coupled with anisotropic Lame's equation for the common displacements in the solid skeleton and in the liquid in pores and a continuity equation for the velocity of a mixture. The proofs are based on the method of reiterated homogenization, suggested by G. Allaire and M. Briane. As a consequence of the main result we derive the double porosity model for the filtration of the incompressible liquid in an absolutely rigid body.