Deformable porous media with degenerate hysteresis in gravity field

Abstract

Hysteresis in the pressure-saturation relation in unsaturated porous media, which is due to surface tension on the liquid-gas interface, exhibits strong degeneracy in the resulting mass balance equation. Solutions to such degenerate equations have been recently constructed by the method of convexification even if the permeability coefficient depends on the hysteretic saturation. The model is extended here to the case that the solid matrix material is viscoelastic and that the system is coupled with a gravity driven moisture flux. The existence of a solution is proved by compact anisotropic embedding involving Orlicz spaces with respect to the time variable.