A bio-chemo-hydro-mechanical model for microbially induced calcite precipitation in soils

Microbial Induced Calcite Precipitation (MICP) is an innovative technique for soil grouting involving a bacterial reactive grout. A comprehensive research work is carried out to better understand and consequently describe the phenomenon of multispecies reactive biogrout transport in saturated, deformable soil. A unique predictive model of behavior of the porous media during biogrout injection taking into account flow, transport, sorption, bacterial decay and chemical reaction, as well as consolidation processes, is presented. The theoretical model is defined by the field equations governing flow, deformation and transport in the material. The general field equations describing the porous media are derived from the combination of the macroscopical balance equations and the required macroscopical constitutive equations. The set of field equations are numerically discretized. The transport equations are tackled with the Streamline Upwind Petrov Galerkin method. Numerical examples are finally addressed, as a first step to validate the capabilities of the proposed model.