Propagation and Evolution of Wave Fronts in Two-Phase Porous Media

Abstract

An investigation is made into the propagation and evolution of wave fronts in a porous medium which is intended to contain two phases: the porous solid, referred to as the skeleton, and the fluid within the interconnected pores formed by the skeleton. In particular, the microscopic density of each real material is assumed to be unchangeable, while the macroscopic density of each phase may change, associated with the volume fractions. A two-phase porous medium model is concisely introduced based on the work by de Boer. Propagation conditions and amplitude evolution of the discontinuity waves are presented by use of the idea of surfaces of discontinuity, where the wave front is treated as a surface of discontinuity. It is demonstrated that the saturation condition entails certain restrictions between the amplitudes of the longitudinal waves in the solid and fluid phases. Two propagation velocities are attained upon examining the existence of the discontinuity waves. It is found that a completely coupled longitudinal wave and a pure transverse wave are realizable in the two-phase porous medium. The discontinuity strength of the pore-pressure may be determined by the amplitude of the coupled longitudinal wave. In the case of homogeneous weak discontinuities, explicit evolution equations of the amplitudes for two types of discontinuity waves are derived.