Nonconforming discretizations of a poromechanical model on general meshes
This manuscript focuses on the conception of nonconforming discretization methods for a poromechanical model. The aim of this work is to ease the coupling between the geomechanics and the multiphase compositional Darcy flow in porous media by discretizing mechanics and flow on the same mesh, typically nonconforming as it represents the lithology. Hence, the novelty hinges on a nonconforming treatment of mechanics on general meshes. In this work, we focus on a linear elasticity model. The nonconforming approximation of such a model is not straightforward owing to its lack of coercivity (meaning that a discrete Korn's inequality must hold on a discontinuous discrete space) and to the numerical locking phenomenon occurring as the material becomes incompressible. In a first part, we design an approximation space on general meshes, which can be viewed as an extension of the so-called Crouzeix-Raviart space. We study its approximation and conformity properties, and prove that this latter is well-adapted to the design of a primal, coercive, and locking-free discretization of the elasticity model on general meshes. The proposed method is less costly than its finite element equivalent (in terms of properties) P2. In a second part, we tackle the nonconforming approximation of a coupled poroelasticity model. We study the convergence of a family of numerical schemes whose space discretization relies on the Gradient schemes framework, to which belongs the method developed for mechanics. We prove the convergence of such approximations toward the minimal regularity solution of the continuous problem, and independently of the choice of physical parameters