Multi-scale chemo-mechanical coupling effects for fluid-infiltrating porous media: theory, implementation, and validation

Abstract

As climate change escalates and the demands for energy resources increase, modern geotechnical engineering must tackle critical challenges to ensure sustainable development and enhance the resilience of infrastructure in society. The coupled chemo-hydro-mechanical processes in multiphase materials present significant challenges in geotechnical engineering, particularly for applications like carbon sequestration, geological disposal of nuclear waste, and hydraulic fracturing with reactive fluids, all of which involve highly heterogeneous and strongly anisotropic multiphysics environments. This dissertation introduces a multiphysical computational framework specifically designed to address the challenges associated with these unconventional applications.

In this dissertation, we consider not only the local multiphysical coupling effects in the constitutive model but also the nonlocal effects arising from pore fluid flow, chemical species convection and diffusion, chemical reactions occurring in both solid and fluid constituents, and damage due to fluid pressure acting on fractures in the solid. We have integrated all these physical processes and developed a single unified model capable of handling the complex hydro-chemo-mechanical responses of geomaterials under varying geochemical conditions, confining pressures, and external loading scenarios. This computational framework offers a comprehensive simulation tool to investigate the long-term stability of geomaterials, which is determined by the intensity of chemical reactions under specific temperature and pressure conditions (assuming an isothermal condition in this dissertation), as well as the sustainability of geotechnical infrastructure in erosive environments driven by both mechanical and chemical processes.

Three key aspects of engineering applications related to the effects of chemical reactions in geotechnical engineering are addressed. Firstly, we have integrated a complete calcite reaction system into poromechanics to couple pore geochemistry with poroelasticity theory. This integration is capable of predicting the geomechanical response essential for long-term stability analysis in \ch{CO2} sequestration engineering. Key features of this model include a multi-field finite element approach, local-equilibrium explicit geochemistry characterization of the calcite dissolution/precipitation reaction system, a robust algorithm for sequentially coupling pore geochemistry with poromechanics, and strategies to enhance the computational efficiency of solvers. Secondly, for applications involving acid working fluids in hydraulic fracturing, we have extended and adapted previous models within the phase field method framework. This extended integration effectively addresses the effects of chemically assisted fracturing in hydraulic fracturing operations. The key innovations of this model are the implementation of the phase field method to capture crack behaviors with poromechanics, the modeling of acid fluid transport in porous media and fractures, and its application to multiple mineral reaction systems. Thirdly, we have proposed a constitutive model that incorporates pore geochemistry and the pressure dissolution effect into internal variables, effectively capturing the chemical reactions contributing to softening in geomaterials. This model effectively illustrates and predicts chemically induced weathering or damage in granular porous media, such as sinkholes and subsidence. Derivations of a thermodynamically-based degradation index consider the influences of pore geochemistry and contact forces between grains and bonds. The model also proposes cross-scale relationships that consider reaction effects from individual particle sizes to particle aggregates. Furthermore, these relationships are incorporated into classical Cam-Clay-type models, along with the derivation of a consistent tangent modulus.