The Subsurface Flow Module is designed for geophysical and environmental phenomena studies such as the modeling of groundwater flow, the spread of pollution through soil, and oil and gas flow in porous media. The Richards’ Equation interface describes nonlinear flow in variably saturated porous media while the options for saturated porous media include the Darcy’s Law interface for slow flow and the Brinkman Equations interface where shear is non-negligible. Free laminar Navier-Stokes flow can easily be combined with porous media flow and even include flow in thin fractures. The Module also handles solute transport in solid, liquid, and gas phases for free, saturated, and variably saturated fluid flows, including solute transport in fractures.

For heat transfer simulations, background geotherms are available as well as automated calculation of effective thermal properties for multicomponent systems. Compaction and subsidence modeling is enabled by a very powerful user interface for poroelasticity. To apply multiphysics modeling to geophysical and environmental applications, the Subsurface Flow Module also allows arbitrary couplings to other physics interfaces in COMSOL Multiphysics, such as chemical reaction kinetics and electromagnetics.

The Subsurface Flow Module was previously known as the Earth Science Module.

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