Phase Discontinuities in Water Flows through a Porous Medium

Flow of a fluid through a porous medium is considered with allowance for heat conduction processes and phase transitions. Discontinuities in flows between both single-phase zones saturated with water and steam and single-and two-phase zones saturated with an equilibrium steam-water mixture are studied. It is shown that only the evaporation fronts are evolutionary for a convex-downward shock adiabat of the discontinuity inside the steam-water mixture. The structure of these fronts is considered and a condition supplementary to the conservation laws and necessary for the well-posed formulation of problems whose solution contains this front is found from the condition of existence of a discontinuity structure between the water (steam) and the steam-water mixture.