The swelling and shrinking behaviour of cartilaginous tissues can be modelled by
a four component mixture
theory in which deformable and charged porous medium is saturated with a fluid
with dissolved ions. This theory results in a coupled system of non-linear parabolic
differential equations together with an algebraic constraint for electroneutrality.
The goal of this project is the three-dimensional computational solution of the system
of equations. A suitably chosen mixed finite element method fulfils the conservation
laws exactly and yields non-oscillatory solutions. This choice should be based on a
thorough understanding of the system of equations. Furthermore, a suitable choice for
the time-integration is needed as well as an efficient solution procedure for the
resulting non-linear equations. The numerical results will be compared with measurements
that will be obtained in a related project.