The influence of coupled physical swelling and chemical reactions on deformable geomaterials

Abstract

Coupled thermo-hydro-mechanical-chemical modelling has attracted attention in past decades due to many contemporary geotechnical engineering applications (e.g., waste disposal, carbon capture and storage). However, molecular-scale interactions within geomaterials (e.g., swelling and dissolution/precipitation) have a significant influence on the mechanical behaviour, yet are rarely incorporated into existing Thermal-Hydro-Mechanical-Chemical (THMC) frameworks. This paper presents a new coupled hydro-mechanical-chemical constitutive model to bridge molecular-scale interactions with macro-physical deformation by combining the swelling and dissolution/precipitation through an extension of the new mixture-coupling theory. Entropy analysis of the geomaterial system provides dissipation energy, and Helmholtz free energy gives the relationship between solids and fluids. Numerical simulation is used to compare with the selected recognized models, which demonstrates that the swelling and dissolution/precipitation processes may have a significant influence on the mechanical deformation of the geomaterials.