Transport in Porous Media, Vol.93, No.3, 597-607, 2012
Poroelasticity-III: Conditions on the Interfaces
In this, the third part of our paper, we continue consideration of the major elements of the poroelastic theory which we started in Parts I and II (in Lopatnikov and Gillespie, Transp Porous Media, 84:471-492, 2010; Transp Porous Media, 89:475-486, 2011). This third part is devoted to considering the general interfacial conditions, consistent with the governing differential equations of the theory. Specifically, we will consider associated mass and momentum conservation laws. Because we developed the theory by construction, general boundary conditions obtained can be applied to the arbitrary interfaces: boundaries between different materials or, for example, moving interfaces of the shock fronts. We do not consider here the last group of conservation laws: the energy conservation laws, which we are going to introduce and investigate in the special part, devoted to the shock wave propagation. In the meantime, special attention is devoted to discussing the problem of "partial permeability" of the interfaces reflected in the literature. Particularly we show, that in the stationary case, the general theory allows only two conditions: either the interface is completely penetrable, or the interface is completely impenetrable. Thus, "partial permeability" solution always appears as only an approximation of an exact dynamic problem, which includes either thin low-permeable interfacial layer (with permeable boundaries), or a non-homogeneous boundary containing permeable and non-permeable patterns.