VELOCITY AND EVOLUTION OF SHOCK WAVES IN SAND WITH INCREASING WATER CONTENT

Abstract

Interest in the problems of shock wave propagation in saturated porous media is associated with studying seismic exploration issues, modeling the hummer effect during hydraulic fracturing, studying the water-gas impact on formations for the purpose of efficient oil production, etc. Experimental work on waves in bulk media is usually carried out in shock tubes. Traditionally, shock tubes are used to study the characteristics of the propagation of shock waves in various media, to analyze the wave properties of these media based on the speed of the shock waves and the change in the shape of the pulse along the passage of the first – main pulse. In a shock tube equipped with a section of bulk media, the wave is repeatedly reflected from the surface of the porous medium under study and the upper end of the tube. Re-reflected waves can be used to study changes in the environment that occurred under the influence of a shock wave, i.e. as probing pulses. In this article, sounding is understood as identifying acoustic properties (changing the shape of shock pulse diagrams and their velocities). This paper presents the results of experimental studies of the propagation of shock waves of small amplitude in sand with a volumetric content of liquid in the pore space from 0 to 40 %, and illustrates the influence of the presence of liquid in the pores on the shape of the main and probing pulses. The research was carried out using the Shock Tube installation, in the Laboratory of Experimental Hydrodynamics of the Mavlyutov Institute of Mechanics of Ufa Branch RAS. An increase in the speed of wave propagation was established with increasing water saturation of sand in the range from 0 to 40 %. An increase in the amplitude of reflected waves when passing through sand, the formation of peaks and stretching of pulses were discovered. The research results can be used in processing geophysical data to interpret seismograms of sandy deposits saturated with gas-liquid systems.