Analysis of an embedded-hybridizable discontinuous Galerkin method for Biot's consolidation model

Abstract: We present an embedded-hybridizable discontinuous Galerkin finite element method for the total pressure formulation of the quasi-static poroelasticity model. Although the displacement and the Darcy velocity are approximated by discontinuous piece-wise polynomials, $H(\text{div})$-conformity of these unknowns is enforced by Lagrange multipliers. The semi-discrete problem is shown to be stable and the fully discrete problem is shown to be well-posed. Additionally, space-time a priori error estimates are derived, and confirmed by numerical examples, that show that the proposed discretization is free of volumetric locking.