Elastic anisotropy due to aligned cracks

Abstract

All existing theoret ical expressions which provide connections between the density of saturated aligned cracks and elastic anisotropy are restricted in some important way; for example, to the case of soft pore fluids (Kf 0.2), and the equant porosity is often large ($, > 0.2). New expressions are derived which are not limited in these ways. A notable feature of these more general expressions is their insensitivity to the aspect ratio of the cracks; only the crack density is critical. An important conclusion of this more general model is that insights previously achieved, concerning the shear wave splitting due to vertical aligned saturated cracks, are sustained. w 2.4