Modeling Unsaturated Flow in Absorbent Swelling Porous Media: Part 2. Numerical Simulation

For solving flow, absorption and deformation processes in porous media containing absorbent gelling materials a finite element method is developed and applied. Adaptive techniques are preferred where spatial, temporal, and residual errors are controlled. Mesh-movement and mesh-refinement strategies are incorporated. Spline approximations are used for better and more flexible descriptions of experimental data and measured relations. Applied to hysteretic material behavior an extended method is described. Comparisons to analytical results and experimental findings are given. A basic sensitivity analysis of two selected key parameters is presented. Practical applications refer to diaper-core flow simulations.