Transient infiltration tests in pyroclastic soils with double porosity

Fallout volcanic deposits of SommaVesuvius(Campania,southern Italy),characterized by the presence of layers with contrasting textural and hydraulic properties,are frequently affected by shallow landslides during rainwater infiltration.The soils of the stratigraphic sequence present intraparticle pores,originated by the gases escaped during magma decompression in the volcanic conduit,thus are characterized by double porosity(i.e.,intraparticle and interparticle pores),which is expected to affect their hydraulic behaviour,and to play a key role in rainwater infiltration through layered deposits.To understand the effect of double porosity on the hydraulic behaviour of the involved soils,controlled experiments have been carried out in an infiltration column.The experimental apparatus is provided with newly designed non-invasive Time Domain Reflectometry(TDR)probes,not buried in the investigated soil layers so as to minimize disturbance to the flow,allowing water content measurement during vertical flow processes.Specifically,transient flow experiments are carried out through reconstituted specimens of black scoriae and grey pumices,both loose pyroclastic granular soils from fallout deposits of Somma-Vesuvius,featuring double porosity with different pore size distributions,that were estimated by X-ray tomography and Mercury Intrusion Porosimetry.The experimental results highlight the effects of the double porosity and clearly indicate the different behaviour of the two soils during wetting and drying processes,mainly related to the different dimensions of intraparticle pores.

NUMERICAL ANALYSIS OF A PROBLEM INVOLVING A VISCOELASTIC BODY WITH DOUBLE POROSITY

We study from a numerical point of view a multidimensional problem involving a viscoelastic body with two porous structures.The mechanical problem leads to a linear system of three coupled hyperbolic partial differential equations.Its corresponding variational formulation gives rise to three coupled parabolic linear equations.An existence and uniqueness result,and an energy decay property,are recalled.Then,fully discrete approximations are introduced using the finite element method and the implicit Euler scheme.A discrete stability property and a priori error estimates are proved,from which the linear convergence of the algorithm is derived under suitable additional regularity conditions.Finally,some numerical simulations are performed in one and two dimensions to show the accuracy of the approximation and the behaviour of the solution.

Some micromechanical models of elastoplastic behaviors of porous geomaterials

Some micromechanics-based constitutive models are presented in this study for porous geomaterials.These micro-macro mechanical models focus on the effect of porosity and the inclusions on the macroscopic elastoplastic behaviors of porous materials. In order to consider the effect of pores and the compressibility of the matrix, some macroscopic criteria are presented firstly for ductile porous medium having one population of pores with different types of matrix(von Mises, Green type, Misese Schleicher and Druckere Prager). Based on different homogenization techniques, these models are extended to the double porous materials with two populations of pores at different scales and a Druckere Prager solid phase at the microscale. Based on these macroscopic criteria, complete constitutive models are formulated and implemented to describe the overall responses of typical porous geomaterials(sandstone,porous chalk and argillite). Comparisons between the numerical predictions and experimental data with different confining pressures or different mineralogical composites show the capabilities of these micromechanics-based models, which take into account the effects of microstructure on the macroscopic behavior and significantly improve the phenomenological ones.

High-Temperature and Low-Frequency Acoustic Energy Absorption by a Novel Porous Metamaterial Structure

In this paper,we propose a novel porous metamaterial structure with an improved acoustic energy absorption performance at high-temperature and in the low-frequency range.In the proposed novel porous metamaterial structure,a porous material matrix containing periodically perforated cylindrical holes arranged in a triangular lattice pattern is applied,and additional interlayers of another porous material are introduced around these perforations.The theoretical model is established by adopting the double porosity theory for the interlayer and the cylindrical hole which form an equivalent inclusion and then applying the homogenization method to the porous metamaterial structure formed by the equivalent inclusion and the porous matrix.The temperature-dependent air and material parameters are considered in the extended theoretical model,which is validated by the finite element results obtained by COMSOL Multiphysics.The acoustic or sound energy absorption performance can be improved remarkably at very low frequencies and high temperature.Furthermore,the underlying acoustic energy absorption mechanism inside the unit-cell is investigated by analyzing the distribution of the time-averaged acoustic power dissipation density and the energy dissipation ratio of each constituent porous material.The results reveal that regardless of the temperature,the acoustic energy is mostly dissipated in the porous material with a lower airflow resistivity,while the acoustic energy dissipated in the porous material with a higher airflow resistivity also becomes considerable in the high-frequency range.The novel porous metamaterial structure proposed in this paper can be efficiently utilized to improve the acoustic energy absorption performance at high temperature.