From arteries to boreholes: Fluid injection into a poroelastic cylinder

The radially outward flow of fluid into a porous medium occurs in many practical problems, from transport across vascular walls to the pressurisation of boreholes in the subsurface. When the injection pressure is large and/or the material is soft, the solid structure will deform and this can have a strong impact on the flow. Here, we study the response of a poroelastic cylinder to sudden fluid injection across a series of two papers, focusing first on the steady state and then on the transient evolution. In both cases, we examine the relative importance of nonlinearity, geometry, constraint, and driving method in determining the amount of deformation, the magnitude of the resulting stresses, the relationship between flow rate and driving pressure, and the rate at which the deformation evolves.

Read the papers: Auton & MacMinn, RSPA 2017 and Auton & MacMinn, RSPA 2018