Thermomechanical phase‐field fracture modeling of fluid‐saturated porous media

Abstract

AbstractIn this work, the problem of brittle fracture in a fluid‐saturated porous material is extended by considering the non‐isothermal states of the sample. The temperature field will affect the problem in two aspects: 1) Temperature‐dependent material parameters, such as elasticity modulus (E) and critical energy release rate (Gc). 2) Thermal expansion due to thermo‐mechanical volume coupling. In hydraulic fracturing, we further study the effect of the temperature difference between the injected fluid and the surrounding porous media ambient on the crack behavior. The modeling of the porous media domain is based on the macroscopic theory of porous media (TPM), whereas the phase‐field method (PFM) is applied to approximate the sharp crack edges by diffusive ones. In the numerical implementation, the coupled system of partial differential equations will be solved using the FEM in order to simulate the heat transition in the crack and non‐crack regions.