Saturated porous medium strain under osmotic actions

Abstract

This paper deals with an experimental and theoretical study of a porous medium strain during the transfers of a solution, which is composed of one solvent and only one solute. The porous medium is immersed into the same solution at different concentration. Resulting from concentration gradients, solvent and solute fluxes are created in opposite directions. Under some conditions relatives, for example, to the skeleton texture or to the solute molecule size, this mass transport can generate strains. We present a thermoporoelastic model taking into account the solvent / solute transport and the stresses / strains in a saturated porous medium. The porous medium is assumed to be isotropic, elastic and saturated with an ideal solution. We pay particular attention to the determination of the various parameters of the model. In the isothermal case, we give analytical relations that express the three most specific coefficients of this study.