Longitudinal waves in partially saturated porous media: the effect of gas bubbles

The problem of the propagation of longitudinal waves in a liquid-saturated porous medium when there are gas bubbles present is considered. The decay factor and the phase velocity of Frenkel-Biot waves of the first and second kind are found as a function of the frequency in the linear approximation. It is shown that, in the neighbourhood of the resonance frequency of the bubbles, longitudinal Frenkel-Biot waves change their form. A wave of the first kind is transformed from a fast wave at low frequencies into a slow wave at high frequencies. The dispersion curve of a wave of the second kind consists of two branches-a "low-frequency" branch, the oscillations of which possess the classical properties, and a "high-frequency" branch, which is a weakly decaying high-velocity mode. The frequency dependences of the ratio of the mass velocities of a gas-liquid mixture and of a porous matrix, and also of the perturbations of the stress in the matrix and the pressure in the mixture, are constructed. It is shown that the "high-frequency" branch of a wave of the second kind is characterized by the in phase motion of the gas-liquid mixture and of the porous matrix, while their mass velocities are close, which explains the weak decay of this mode of oscillations. An analytical expression is obtained for the "boundary frequency", which determines the offset of the "high-frequency" branch of the dispersion curve of the wave of the second kind. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.