THERMAL STRESSES IN A FLUID-SATURATED POROELASTIC HOLLOW SPHERE

Abstract

By using the thermoporoelastic theory proposed previously, thermal stresses are analyzed that are induced in a fluid-saturated porous hollow sphere subjected to a sudden rise in temperature and pressure on its inner wall. Since the problem formulated is spherically symmetric, the displacement field is decoupled from the temperature and pore fluid pressure fields, which are still coupled with each other. Coupled diffusion equations for heat and fluid flows are solved by the Crank-Nicolson implicit method because they involve nonlinear and integral terms. The attention is focused on the effect of heat transfer by fluid flow through pores on the temperature and thermal stress distributions. This effect is very marked for the case where the fluid diffusivity is much larger than the thermal one. This suggests a possible control of thermal stresses by active fluid injection.