The correspondence between Voigt and Reuss bounds and the decoupling constraint in a two-grid staggered solution algorithm to coupled flow and deformation in heterogeneous poroelastic media

We perform a convergence analysis of a two-grid staggered solution algorithm for the Biot system modeling coupled flow and deformation in heterogeneous poroelastic media. The algorithm first solves the flow subproblem on a fine grid using a mixed finite element method (by freezing a certain measure of the mean stress) followed by the poromechanics subproblem on a coarse grid using a conforming Galerkin method. Restriction operators map the fine scale flow solution to the coarse scale poromechanical grid and prolongation operators map the coarse scale poromechanical solution to the fine scale flow grid. The coupling iterations are repeated until convergence and Backward Euler is employed for time marching. The analysis is based on studying the equations satisfied by the difference of iterates to show that the two-grid scheme is a contraction map under certain conditions. Those conditions are used to construct the restriction and prolongation operators as well as arrive at coarse scale elastic properties in terms of the fine scale data. We show that the adjustable parameter in the measure of the mean stress is linked to the Voigt and Reuss bounds frequently encountered in computational homogenization of multiphase composites.