Coupled Flow and Mechanics in a 3D Porous Media with Line Sources

Abstract

In this paper, we consider the numerical approximation of the quasi-static, linear Biot model in a 3D domain Ω when the right-hand side of the flow equation is concentrated on a 1D line source δΛ. This model is of interest in the context of medicine, where it can be used to model flow and deformation through vascularized tissue. The model itself is challenging to approximate as the line source induces the pressure and flux solution to be singular. To overcome this, we here combine two methods: (1) a fixed-stress splitting scheme to decouple the flow and mechanics equations and (2) a singularity removal method for the pressure and flux variables. The singularity removal is based on a splitting of the solution into a lower regularity term capturing the solution singularities and a higher regularity term denoted the remainder. With this in hand, the flow equations can now be reformulated so that they are posed with respect to the remainder terms. The reformulated system is then approximated using the fixed-stress splitting scheme. We conclude by showing the results for a test case simulating flow through vascularized tissue. Here, the numerical method is found to converge optimally using lowest-order elements for the spatial discretization.