Thermo-hydro-mechanical coupled material point method for modeling freezing and thawing of porous media

• Published in: International Journal for Numerical and Analytical Methods in Geomechanics
• Main Authors: Yu, Jidu, Zhao, Jidong, Zhao, Shiwei, Liang, Weijian
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: 2024
• Subjects: Climate warming; Freezing and thawing; Frozen soil; Large deformation; Material point method; Multiphysics modeling; Phase transition; Thermo-hydro-mechanical coupling; Ice; permafrost
• Online Access: http://repository.hkust.edu.hk/ir/Record/1783.1-139291; https://doi.org/10.1002/nag.3794; http://lbdiscover.ust.hk/uresolver?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:journal&rfr_id=info:sid/HKUST:SPI&rft.genre=article&rft.issn=0363-9061&rft.volume=&rft.issue=&rft.date=2024&rft.spage=1&rft.aulast=Yu&rft.aufirst=Jidu&rft.atitle=Thermo-hydro-mechanical+coupled+material+point+method+for+modeling+freezing+and+thawing+of+porous+media&rft.title=International+Journal+for+Numerical+and+Analytical+Methods+in+Geomechanics; http://www.scopus.com/record/display.url?eid=2-s2.0-85196534110&origin=inward; http://gateway.isiknowledge.com/gateway/Gateway.cgi?GWVersion=2&SrcAuth=LinksAMR&SrcApp=PARTNER_APP&DestLinkType=FullRecord&DestApp=WOS&KeyUT=001252284600001

Climate warming accelerates permafrost thawing, causing warming-driven disasters like ground collapse and retrogressive thaw slump (RTS). These phenomena, involving intricate multiphysics interactions, phase transitions, nonlinear mechanical responses, and fluid-like deformations, and pose increasing risks to geo-infrastructures in cold regions. This study develops a thermo-hydro-mechanical (THM) coupled single-point three-phase material point method (MPM) to simulate the time-dependent phase transition and large deformation behavior arising from the thawing or freezing of ice/water in porous media. The mathematical framework is established based on the multiphase mixture theory in which the ice phase is treated as a solid constituent playing the role of skeleton together with soil grains. The additional strength due to ice cementation is characterized via an ice saturation-dependent Mohr–Coulomb model. The coupled formulations are solved using a fractional-step-based semi-implicit integration algorithm, which can offer both satisfactory numerical stability and computational efficiency when dealing with nearly incompressible fluids and extremely low permeability conditions in frozen porous media. Two hydro-thermal coupling cases, that is, frozen inclusion thaw and Talik closure/opening, are first benchmarked to show the method can correctly simulate both conduction- and convection-dominated thermal regimes in frozen porous systems. The fully THM responses are further validated by simulating a 1D thaw consolidation and a 2D rock freezing example. Good agreements with experimental results are achieved, and the impact of hydro-thermal variations on the mechanical responses, including thaw settlement and frost heave, are successfully captured. Finally, the predictive capability of the multiphysics MPM framework in simulating thawing-triggered large deformation and failure is demonstrated by modeling an RTS and the settlement of a strip footing on thawing ground.