Numerical analysis via MEF of poroelastic problems: Análise numérica via MEF de problemas poroelásticos

This paper presents a fully coupled hydro-mechanical formulation, based on the finite element method in terms of the displacement and pore-water pressure, taking into account the effect of relative compressibility between the grains and the solid skeleton. Its main goal is to provide a clear formulation and reference examples to facilitate reproduction by anyone which intend to develop their own computer program to solve poroelasticity problems. The numerical model presented is verified with analytical solutions of problems in plane strain condition and others authors numerical results. The influence of material properties on the pore-water pressure dissipation process and, the performance of the time integration scheme are presented. Higher the Poisson’s coefficient and lower the grain compressibility faster is the process of dissipation highlighting the importance of taking into account the relative compressibility between the grains and the solid skeleton on the coupled analyses. The Crank Nicholson’s algorithm presents a good performance when comparing with other time integration scheme presented by other authors.