A general framework for the modeling of porous ferrogels at finite strains

Porous ferrogels are a new class of magneto-active composite materials that deform and alter their material characteristics under the influence of magnetic fields. In the future such materials could find a wide range of application in biomedicine and microfluidics. In this work we present a theoretical and computational framework for the macroscopic, continuum-based modeling of porous ferrogels at finite strains. Departing from the balance laws of continuum mechanics, we derive a thermodynamically consistent model based on Biot’s consolidation theory. Regarding constitutive modeling we limit our attention to isotropic materials. Furthermore we discuss details of the numerical implementation of the coupled three field problem within a nonlinear finite element algorithm. The modeling capabilities and algorithmic performance are demonstrated by means of two representative initial boundary value problems.