Compressional wave propagation in saturated porous media and its numerical analysis using a space-time conservation element and solution element method.

Compressional waves in saturated porous media are relevant to many fields from oil exploration to diagnostic of human cancellous bone and can be used to interpret physical behaviors of materials. In this work, based on Biot's theory in the low frequency range, a key finding is that there exists a critical frequency of Biot's theory in the low frequency range, which determines the coincidence of the properties of Biot waves of the first and second kinds. Furthermore, we have investigated the dispersion and attenuation of the coalescence of the first and second compressional waves in the low frequency range. The coalescence of the first and second waves is strongly attenuated with a moderate phase velocity and shows the in-phase feature. In addition, acoustic wave propagation has been calculated numerically using the space-time conservation element and solution element (CESE) method. The CESE-simulated results are compared to the experimental data and to those of the classical transfer function approach. We show that the CESE scheme preserves the local and global flux conservations in the solution procedure of Biot's theory. It is found that the CESE method provides more accurate predictions of high dispersion and strong attenuation of compressional waves in the low frequency range and is well suitable for predicting compressional wave fields in saturated porous media.