Homogenization of a Biot-Stokes system modeling deformable vuggy porous media

Abstract: Vugs are small to medium-sized cavities inside rock, which have significant effects on the fluid flow in rock. Moreover, the presence of vugs may have non-trivial impacts on the geomechanical behavior of rock. How to quantify and analyze such effects is still an opening problem. To this end, we derive a macroscopic poroelastic model for a single-phase viscous fluid flow through a deformable vuggy porous medium. At first, a vuggy porous medium is divided into two parts: the porous matrix and vugs. Then, we model the hydro-mechanical coupling process on the fine scale using Biot's equations within porous matrix, Stokes equations within the vugs, and an extended Beavers-Joseph-Saffman boundary condition on the porous-fluid interface. Next, based on the homogenization theory, we obtain a macroscopic Biot's equations governing the hydro-mechanical coupling behavior of vuggy porous media on larger scale. Subsequently, the macroscopic poroelastic coefficients, such as the effective Darcy permeability, effective Young's modulus and effective Biot coefficient, can be computed from three cell problems. Finally, several numerical examples are designed to demonstrate the computational procedure of evaluating the geomechanical behavior of vuggy porous media.