Extrinsically enriched element free Galerkin method for heat and fluid flow in deformable porous media involving weak and strong discontinuities

In this study, an extrinsically enriched element free Galerkin (EFG) method is proposed for the thermo-hydro-mechanical simulation of saturated porous media. By taking advantage of partition of unity property of moving least square shape functions, weak discontinuities such as material interfaces are modeled using the Ridge enrichment function and impermeable strong discontinuities are simulated using the Heaviside function. Some guidelines are proposed for the selection of EFG numerical parameters to ensure the stability and accuracy of the results. Numerical examples are provided to illustrate the capability of the proposed approach for fully coupled THM analysis of discontinuous porous media.