Stationary damage modelling of poroelastic contact

This paper introduces the concept of stationary damage as a means for examining the mechanical behaviour of fluid saturated media that are susceptible to alteration in their elastic and fluid transport characteristics, while maintaining the essential poroelastic character of the medium. In this study, the effects of elastic damage and the attendant alterations in the hydraulic conductivity characteristics of the poroelastic medium are modelled. Investigations of this behaviour suggest that the damage-induced alterations of both stiffness and hydraulic conductivity remain sensibly constant from the state achieved during the initial damage. This suggests the applicability of a stationary damage concept where the initial damage-induced alteration of the poroelastic characteristics leads to a poroelastic medium that is both elastically and hydraulically inhomogeneous. The initial inhomogeneous state for the poroelastic medium can be conveniently determined by considering solutions to the associated elasticity problem. The proposed methodology is applied to examine, computationally, certain classical contact problems for a poroelastic medium susceptible to elastic damage. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.