Experimental Investigation of Acoustic Propagation in Saturated Sands with Variable Fluid Properties

摘要

The Biot-Stoll theory describes the propagation of acoustic waves in a saturated, unconsolidated porous medium. The expressions for the attenuation and phase velocity derived from this theory depend explicitly on the viscosity, density, and bulk modulus of the pore fluid. An experiment has been designed to determine the dependence of attenuation and phase velocity on these properties of the pore fluid. The phase velocity and attenuation of compressional waves were measured using a mixture of water and glycerine as the interstitial fluid. The theoretical background is reviewed and the experimental procedure is discussed in detail. The results, along with comparisons with the Biot-Stoll theory, are then presented. The choices of the theoretical parameters are discussed and their relation to the fit of the theory to the data. The Biot-Stoll theory is shown to adequately describe the effects of the fluid properties on acoustic wave propagation in saturated sediments, at least for compressional waves of the first type.