Effect of pore shape on effective porothermoelastic properties of isotropic rocks

The present work is devoted to the determination of the macroscopic poroelastic and porothermoelastic properties of geomaterials or rock-like composites constituted by an isotropic matrix with embedded ellipsoidal inhomogeneities and/or pores randomly oriented. By considering the solution of a single ellipsoidal inhomogeneity in the homogenization problem it is possible to observe the significant influence of the shape of inhomogeneities on the effective porothermoelastic properties. In the particular case of microscopic and macroscopic isotropic behaviors, a closed form solution based on analytical integrate of the Eshelby solution for the single ellipsoidal inhomogeneity can be obtained for the randomly oriented distribution. This result completes the well known solutions in the limiting cases of spherical and penny shape inhomogeneities. Based on recent works on porous rock-like composites such as shales or argillites, an application of the developed solution to a two-level microporomechanics model is presented. The microporosity in homogenized at the first level, and multiple solid mineral phase inclusions are added at the second level. The overall porothermoelastic coefficients are estimated in the particular context of heterogeneous solid matrix. Numerical results are presented for data representative of isotropic rock-like composites. (C) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.