Weak solutions in nonlinear poroelasticity with incompressible constituents

Abstract

We consider quasi-static nonlinear poroelastic systems with applications in biomechanics and, in particular, tissue perfusion. The nonlinear permeability is taken to be dependent on solid dilation, and physical types of boundary conditions (Dirichlet, Neumann, and mixed) for the fluid pressure are considered. The system under consideration represents a nonlinear, implicit, degenerate evolution problem, which falls outside of the well-known implicit semigroup monotone theory. Previous literature related to proving existence of weak solutions for these systems is based on constructing solutions as limits of approximations, and energy estimates are obtained only for the constructed solutions. In comparison, in this treatment we provide for the first time a direct, fixed point strategy for proving the existence of weak solutions, which is made possible by a novel result on the uniqueness of weak solutions of the associated linear system (where the permeability is given as a function of space and time). The uniqueness proof for the associated linear problem is based on novel energy estimates for arbitrary weak solutions, rather than just for constructed solutions. The results of this work provide a foundation for addressing strong solutions, as well as uniqueness of weak solutions for nonlinear poroelastic systems.