A theoretical analysis, based on the search for a normal dissipation potential, is performed in order to generalize the empirical non-Darcy one-dimensional flow models to 3-D flows through anisotropic porous media. In an abstract framework, it is proven that a large number of heuristic nonlinear equations governing the multidimensional flow through isotropic porous media can be derived starting from a potential strictly related to the mechanical power dissipated by the fluid. Such a formulation allows to define, for the tensor permeability case, a wide class of filtration models according to the Onsager's generalized theory of dissipative mechanical systems. A consistent generalization to anisotropic permeability case of polynomial flow models is proposed. Both primal and dual mixed variational formulations associated to the proposed quadratic and incomplete cubic flow models are introduced and discussed.