Coupled heat, water and gas flow in deformable porous media

A fully coupled numerical model to simulate the slow transient phenomena involving heat and mass transfer in deforming porous media is developed. It makes use of the modified effective stress concept together with the capillary pressure relationship. The governing equations in terms of displacements, temperature, capillary pressure and gas pressure are coupled non-linear differential equations and are solved by the finite element method. The model is validated with respect to a documented experiment on semisaturated soil behaviour. Two other examples involving subsidence due to pumping from a phreatic aquifer and thermoelastic consolidation of saturated and semisaturated media are also presented. (from Authors)