Reflection and transmission of plane waves in stressed media with an imperfectly bonded interface

Abstract

SUMMARY The reflection and transmission of elastic waves are of great significance for predicting reservoir physical properties, interpreting seismic data and detecting crustal structures. Most studies only consider the initial vertical stress state when studying the reflection and transmission of elastic waves at imperfectly bonded interfaces, but few studies consider the influence of initial stress on boundary conditions. Moreover, the effect of initial stress on the energy distribution of elastic waves at imperfectly bonded interfaces has rarely been investigated. We propose a unified method to calculate the energy reflection and transmission coefficients for different incident waves at welded or imperfectly bonded interfaces in stressed media. The effects of initial stress on the equation of motion, the elastic properties of the medium and the boundary conditions at the interface are considered. The elastic properties of rocks under initial stress are described by acoustoelasticity theory. In addition, we define a new stress tensor to modify the linear-slip model for describing boundary conditions at the imperfectly bonded interface in the presence of initial stress. Numerical results show that the energy reflection and transmission coefficients at the non-welded interface in stressed media depend on the elastic properties of the incident and transmitted media, the initial stress, the type and magnitude of the interfacial compliance and the frequency and propagation direction of the incident wave. The initial vertical and horizontal stresses dominate the reflection and transmission coefficients at small and large angles, respectively. The discontinuity in displacement across the imperfectly bonded boundary results in the frequency dependence of the reflection and transmission coefficients. Imperfect bonding enhances P-wave and SV-wave energy reflection and weakens P-wave energy transmission. However, imperfect bonding can enhance the energy transmission of the SV wave for the imperfectly bonded interface with high contrast between tangential and normal compliance and a resonance peak appears at a specific frequency. We also notice that imperfectly bonded interfaces with interfacial compliance less than $1.0 \times {10}^{ - 11}$ m Pa−1 can be regarded as welded interfaces in the seismic frequency band (lower than 100 Hz). In addition, the initial stress greatly influences the reflection coefficients at high frequencies and the transmission coefficients at low frequencies. The initial vertical stress can reduce the energy transmission of SV waves at imperfectly bonded interfaces. In contrast, the initial horizontal stress can significantly increase the energy transmission of low-frequency SV waves and may lead to the disappearance of the resonant peak in the transmission coefficients.