Propagation of plane waves in poroviscoelastic anisotropic media

This study discusses wave propagation in perhaps the most general model of a poroelastic medium. The medium is considered as a viscoelastic, anisotropic and porous solid frame such that its pores of anisotropic permeability are filled with a viscous fluid. The anisotropy considered is of general type, and the attenuating waves in the medium are treated as the inhomogeneous waves. The complex slowness vector is resolved to define the phase velocity, homogeneous attenuation, inhomogeneous attenuation, and angle of attenuation for each of the four attenuating waves in the medium. A non-dimensional parameter measures the deviation of an inhomogeneous wave from its homogeneous version. An numerical model of a North-Sea sandstone is used to analyze the effects of the propagation direction, inhomogeneity parameter, frequency regime, anisotropy symmetry, anelasticity of the frame, and viscosity of the pore-fluid on the propagation characteristics of waves in such a medium.

A unified poroviscoelastic model with mesoscopic and microscopic heterogeneities

The wave-induced fluid flow(WIFF) is considered to be the main cause of dispersion and attenuation of seismic waves in fluid-saturated porous media. Among numerous theories, the mesoscopic and microscopic heterogeneities are considered to be the primary mechanisms causing the WIFF. Furthermore,in most rocks, the mesoscopic and microscopic heterogeneities exist simultaneously and can cause obvious transitions of the fast P-wave velocity, which means it is necessary to consider the influence of the two mechanisms on the dispersion and attenuation simultaneously. Numerous results have shown that the dispersions and attenuations caused by these two mechanisms can be approximated in terms of the Zener model. To combine the two mechanisms into a unified model, we introduce a new generalized Zener model into the Biot poroelasticity theory to obtain a new poroviscoelastic model. Comparisons between the numerical results and two groups of experimental data further confirm the validity of our new model.

Separating viscoelasticity and poroelasticity of gels with diferent length and time scales

Viscoelasticity and poroelasticity commonly coexist as time-dependent behaviors in polymer gels. Engineering applications often require knowledge of both behaviors separated; however, few methods exist to decouple viscoelastic and poroelastic properties of gels. We propose a method capable of separating viscoelasticity and poroelasticity of gels in various mechanical tests. The viscoelastic char- acteristic time and the poroelastic diffusivity of a gel define an intrinsic material length scale of the gel. The experimen- tal setup gives a sample length scale, over which the solvent migrates in the gel. By setting the sample length to be much larger or smaller than the material length, the viscoelasticity and poroelasticity of the gel will dominate at different time scales in a test. Therefore, the viscoelastic and poroelastic properties of the gel can be probed separately at different time scales of the test. We further validate the method by finite-element models and stress-relaxation experiments.

A wave propagation model with the Biot and the fractional viscoelastic mechanisms

Energy loss in porous media containing fluids is typically caused by a variety of dynamic mechanisms.In the Biot theory,energy loss only includes the frictional dissipation between the solid phase and the fluid phase,resulting in underestimation of the dispersion and attenuation of the waves in the low frequency range.To develop a dynamic model that can predict the high dispersion and strong attenuation of waves at the seismic band,we introduce viscoelasticity into the Biot model and use fractional derivatives to describe the viscoelastic mechanism,and finally propose a new wave propagation model.Unlike the Biot model,the proposed model includes the intrinsic dissipation of the solid frame.We investigate the effects of the fractional order parameters on the dispersion and attenuation of the P-and S-waves using several numerical experiments.Furthermore,we use several groups of experimental data from different fluid-saturated rocks to testify the validity of the new model.The results demonstrate that the new model provides more accurate predictions of high dispersion and strong attenuation of different waves in the low frequency range.