Development of the formalism of the discrete element method for the study of the mechanical behavior of liquid-saturated porous materials on a pore scale

Abstract

In the framework of a single computational approach (particle method), we developed a coupled microscale computer model of liquid-saturated micropores in a solid-phase carrier. Within the model, the solid-phase and liquid-phase components of the contrast system are modeled on the basis of the formalism of homogeneously deformable discrete elements. For computer simulation of flow of complex liquids (including aqueous solutions of drugs) in the micropore volume of the carrier, a new implementation of discrete elements has been developed. This implementation borrows key advantages of the dissipative particle dynamics method. Using the system of adjacent slit-shaped micropores in hydroxyapatite filled with water as an example, we showed an adequacy of the developed discrete element based formalism and its applicability for microscale study of the coupled problems including deformation of solid-phase skeleton and flow of liquids in micropore space.