An experimental and theoretical study of shock-induced surface waves in porous boreholes.pdfVIP

An experimental and theoretical study of shock-induced surface waves in porous boreholes G. Chao1,2 , D.M.J. Smoulders, and M.E.H. van Dongerr 1 Delft University of Technology, Department of Geotechnology, Mijnbouwstmat 120, 2628 RX Delft, The Netherlands 2 Eindhoven University of Technology, Department of Applied Physics, Fluid Dynamics Labomtory, 5600 MB Eindhoven, The Netherlands Abstract. Surface wave modes in a water-filled borehole surrounded by a poroelastic medium are studied. Numerical and experimental results are presented for the dispersion relation of shock-induced surface waves in a borehole in a confined formation in a broad band of frequen- cies (1-50 kHz). Theoretically, it is shown that permeability affects considerably both the phase velocity and damping coefficient of the pseudo-Stoneley wave. Experimentally, a vertical shock tube is used to excite pseudo-Stoneley and pseudo-Rayleigh waves as well as the bulk compres- sional wave. Qualitative agreement between experiment and theory is obtained. 1 Introduction The study of surface acoustic waves provides a useful tool in the characterization of elastic materials in a wide range of applications. In geophysical applications this is of great importance since various exploration techniques make use of surface acoustic waves in order to determine the existence of water, gas and hydrocarbon resources. In these situations, a realistic approach must consider a porous medium and the saturating fluid instead-of a simple elastic material. Acoustic wave propagation in a fully saturated porous medium can be described in terms of Biot theory [1] . This theory predicts in addition to the usual P and S waves an extra longitudinal wave, usually called slow P wave. Feng and Johnson [2] have applied this theory to the study of surface acoustic waves in flat interfaces between a fluid and a fully saturated porous medium . They found that there are three types of surface waves that can propagate in these configurations