Effects of fluid flow on wave velocity and attenuation in porous rocks

C. Wei
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Vermont, Burlington, USA

K.K. Muraleetharan
School of Civil Engineering and Environmental Science, University of Oklahoma, Norman, USA

ABSTRACT: Fluid flow induced by a stress wave dissipates wave energy in fluid-saturated porous rocks,
resulting in intrinsic wave attenuation and velocity dispersion (velocity depending upon frequency). Here the
effects of fluid flow at different scales are analyzed, and a porodynamic model is presented. The model depends
only on measurable poroelastic parameters and the time for fluid pressure to equilibrate. The effects of local
fluid flow are taken into account by virtue of the concept of dynamic compatibility conditions on the interfaces
among coexisting individual phases. The model explains the measured acoustical data for both fully and partially
saturated rocks over a broad range of frequencies and offers a unique way to evaluate the frequency-dependent
behavior of fluid-saturated porous rocks.

1 INTRODUCTION generates fluid-pressure gradient between the peaks

Fluid flow induced by a stress wave dissipates energy
in fluid-saturated porous rocks, resulting in intrin-
sic wave attenuation and velocity dispersion (velocity
depending upon frequency) (Winkler & Nur 1979,
Winkler 1985, Murphy 1982, Jones 1986). A stress
wave induces fluid flow in three different regions,
defined by the distance over which the generated fluid
pressure attempts to equilibrate by diffusion (Pride
et al. 2003). Macroscopic fluid flow results from the
fluid-pressure gradient developing between the peaks
and troughs of the stress wave (Biot 1956a, b). Fluid
flow also occurs at a scale much smaller than the wave-
length, such as microscopic (pore) scales (Biot 1962,
OConnell & Budiansky 1974, Mako & Nur 1979)
and mesoscopic scales (Akbar et al. 1994, Pride et al.
2003). Earlier investigations were based on the details
of flow-related local structure of rocks that are diffi-
cult to quantify (Dvorkin & Nur 1993, Johnson 2001,
Pride & Berryman 2003). Here we analyze the effects
of fluid flow in various regions, and present a poro-
dynamic model that depends only upon measurable
poroelastic parameters and the time for fluid pressure
to equilibrate. Our model explains the measured seis-
mic data for both fully and partially saturated rocks
over a broad range of frequencies and offers a unique
way to evaluate the frequency-dependent behavior of
fluid-saturated porous rocks.
Consider a representative averaging volume for
a rock with a size much smaller than the wave-
length and much larger than the pore size. When a
compressional (P) wave propagates through a rock, it
and troughs of the wave, driving macroscopic fluid
flow across the averaging volume. At pore scales,
due to existence of grain microcracks (OConnell &
Budiansky 1974, Mavko & Nur 1979) and broken
grain contacts (Murphy et al. 1986), the fluid is
squeezed out of the microcracks and contacts into
the nearby rigid pores, leading to microscopic (squirt)
fluid flow (Mavko & Nur 1979). The lithologic com-
position in an averaging volume can be heterogeneous,
some regions being very compliant while others being
very stiff. Higher fluid pressure is generated in the
compliant regions in response to the passing stress
wave, inducing fluid flow at a scale (meso-scale)
comparable to the size of the averaging volume.
Mesoscopic flow can also occur in the rocks with het-
erogeneously distributed fluid content (Akbar et al.
1994, Cadoret et al. 1998).
2 DYNAMIC COMPATIBILITY CONDITIONS
ON INTERFACES
To quantify the effects of fluid flow at various scales,
we first analyze the micro interactive forces in an aver-
aging volume. Due to the motion of fluid with respect
to solid grains, a viscous boundary layer begins to
develop in the pores at a certain frequency, producing
micro drag forces tangentially acting on the boundary
of the solid grains. The frequency for the onset of the
boundary layer is known to approximately equal the
characteristic frequency at which maximum energy

181
Copyright 2005 Taylor & Francis Group plc, London, UK
dissipation occurs due to macroscopic (wavelength- upon permeability k, fluid viscosity f , porosity n, and
scale) fluid flow (Pride et al. 2003). We therefore saturation (Bear 1972); coefficient Z f = f f and f
suggest that these drag forces are induced by the represents the change in ( p f pS ) induced solely by
macroscopic flow and thus can be characterized using a unit variation of n f at very low frequencies. The fre-
Biots theory (Biot 1956a, b, 1962). In addition, the quency dependence of f has been derived by many
pressure compatibility condition across the bound- authors (Biot 1962, Norris 1986, Johnson et al. 1987,
ary of a solid grain requires that the micro pressure Gist 1994) and shall not be repeated here.
pSm of the grain be equal to the micro fluid pressure
f
pm , where f = W (wetting fluid) and N (non-wetting
fluid) at partial saturation, and f = W at full satura-
tion. These compatibility conditions cannot be directly 3 CONSTITUTIVE EQUATIONS
averaged onto the continuum level to yield p f = pS
(Gray 2000), where pS and p f are the averaged solid 3.1 State equations
and fluid pressures, respectively. Rather, the pressure The total stress tensor of the mixture as a whole can
differences ( p f pS ) are nonzero rate-sensitive quan- be decomposed as (Wei and Muraleetharan 2002a)
tities. These dynamic compatibility conditions on the
interfaces among individual constituents play a key
role in the following derivations.
At very low frequencies, fluid pressures have suffi-
cient time to equilibrate due to local pressure gradients, where 1 is the second-order unit tensor with compo-
and the quantity ( p f pS ) always attains its equilib- nents ij ; S is the intrinsic stress tensor of the solid
rium value. At high frequencies, however, fluid pres- phase, which has two contributions: One is associated
sures do not have sufficient time to equilibrate leading with the compression of the solid grains and the other
to local pressure gradients. The quantity ( p f pS ) is associated with the deformation of the solid matrix.
then tends to relax to an equilibrium value. This cap- Formally, we have
illary relaxation process attenuates wave energy. We
suggest that such a process is governed by mesoscopic
and/or microscopic fluid flow, depending upon the
wave frequency. Accordingly, the capillary relaxation
time f is the same as the time for fluid pressure to where is given by
equilibrate by diffusion. The time for fluid diffusion
is evaluated by 2c /Df , where c is the characteristic
length of (meso or micro) fluid flow and Df is the
relevant fluid-pressure diffusivity.
The rate of energy dissipation due to capillary AS is the free energy density of the solid phase and it
relaxation and viscous dragging is given by (Wei & is assumed to be a function of and S ; where is the
Muraleetharan 2002a) infinitesimal strain tensor of the rock matrix. Other
state equations are given by

where n f is the rate of change of the fluid volume

fraction; w f the relative velocity of a fluid with respect
to the solid phase; f the effective (averaged) drag and
f the nonequilibrium capillary pressure and
force; "

3.2 Linear constitutive equations

Here c is the effective intrinsic mass density of con- Because the acoustical behavior of porous media is of
stituent c (c = s, f ); A f is the free energy density of a main concern here, it is sufficient to consider the linear
fluid and it is assumed to be a function of n f and f . problem. Linearizing (5)(7) yields
In this paper, we assume that porous media are sta-
tistically isotropic. Considering linear dissipation and
according to (1), we assume as a first approximation
that f = f w f and " f = Z f n f , where f depends

182
Copyright 2005 Taylor & Francis Group plc, London, UK

and
, W , N ), capillary relaxation time (W , N ), and
where quantities with subscript 0 are the values at
the initial state, which is assumed to be equilibrium.
The linear form of (2) is
Hence the dynamic (nonequilibrium) pressure differ-
ence can be written as
, W , and
Assume that state variables have time dependence
as exp(it), where is the characteristic angular
frequency and i2 = 1. It follows from (12) that
, W
For later reference, the linear mass balance of
constituent c (c = S, f ) is introduced as
c
where u is the displacement vector. Particularly, it is
noted that = uS . The initial porosity n0 is given
by
Mass densities S and f and volume fraction n f
can be eliminated from (8)-(10), (13) and (14). Using
(4) and (15), we derive
for saturated porous media, and
Copyright 2005 Taylor & Francis Group plc, London, UK
for partially saturated porous media. Coefficient G is
the shear modulus of the solid matrix and G = nS0 S .
Other material coefficients with a caret in (16)(20),
though not explicitly given here, depend on the bulk
modulus KS of the solid material, the bulk modulus of
the fluid(s) (KW , KN ), the tangent properties (S , S ,
angular frequency . In general, these coefficients are
complex numbers.
3.3 Material parameters
For fully saturated porous media, material properties
to be determined include KS , KW , S , S ,
W . For partially saturated porous media, in addition to
these properties, it is necessary to determine KN , N
and N . All these tangent properties are independent
of frequency. Hence, these unknown properties can be
determined by performing static tests ( 0). Lets
say that shear modulus G and bulk moduli of the solid
and fluid(s) are known. The evaluation of S ,
(and N ), and W (and N ) is shown below.
First consider the fully saturated case. Define
Physically, f is the volume of a fluid entering the pores
in a unit volume of bulk material. Using (3), (16), and
(17), we derive
where K U is the complex undrained bulk modulus, M 
is the complex fluid storage coefficient, and 
B is the
complex effective stress coefficient. They are given by
D is the complex undrained bulk modulus,
where K
183
and
To determine the material properties, static com-
pression tests with different jacketed and drainage
conditions can be performed. These tests are used
to determine static poroelastic parameters including
drained bulk modulus KD , undrained bulk modulus
KU , effective stress coefficient B , pore compress-
ibility Cn , Bishop pore pressure coefficient B, and
can be obtained by solving
unjacketed compressibility CS (Kmpel 1991). These
parameters are related to each other by the following
relationships (Wei and Muraleetharan 2004):
where Kn = Cn , and Kn = 1/CS . It is very important
to note that in general, because of (29)(32), there are
only four independent parameters among KD , KU , B ,
Cn , B, CS and G. For locally homogeneous porous
media, the number of independent poroelastic parame-
ters reduces to three. In this case, we can show that W
vanishes, and the model predicts that the viscoelastic
effects associated with local fluid flow are negligible
(Wei and Muraleetharan 2004). This is consistent with
experimental observations (Winkler 1985, Gist 1994).
Once the four independent poroelastic parame-
ters (including G) are obtained, they can be used to
calculate the tangent material parameters. Note that
Now Eqs. (24)(28) can be solved to yield the values
of S ,
, and W . Parameter S is calculated from than the pore size.
S = G/nS0 .
Next consider the partially saturated case. A
detailed procedure to evaluate parameters W and N
was presented in Wei and Muraleetharan (2002b). Here
it is necessary to determine the constant-suction mod-
ulus KM and the bulk modulus associated with suction
Copyright 2005 Taylor & Francis Group plc, London, UK
change H as well as the saturation capacity c . For
partially saturated rocks, we can show that
and
Parameters S and
(34) and (35). Again, parameter S is calculated from
S = G/nS0 .
Finally, we evaluate capillary relaxation time W
(and N ). These time parameters are related to local
fluid flow. Indeed, they are equal to the characteris-
tic times of local fluid flow (Wei and Muraleetharan
2004). For example, for fully saturated conditions, if
the local flow is dominated by microscopic squirt flow,
we have
where w is the dynamic viscosity of the fluid and is
the typical aspect ratio of the microscopic apertures.
If the local flow is represented by meso-scale flow,
where m is the characteristic size of meso-scale
heterogeneity.
4 EXAMPLES
Figure 1 illustrates the velocity dispersion and attenu-
ation of P1-wave in the fully saturated Berea sand-
stone for three different relaxation times, showing
that increasing W (or W ) continuously shifts the
attenuation peak to lower frequencies. The rightmost
attenuation peak is attributed to macroscopic flow
(Biot flow). Clearly, our model captures potential
energy loss due to fluid flow in fully saturated rocks at
any frequency from the seismic range to the ultrasonic
range, assuming that the wavelength is much larger
In reality, rocks can have a capillary relaxation spec-
trum, corresponding to various mechanisms of fluid
flow operating at different frequencies. As shown in
Figure 2, two peaks were observed in the bulk atten-
uation QK1 versus frequency for the fully saturated
Harz quartzite (Paffenholz & Burkhardt 1989). The
184
 a 80
4,500
Phase velocity [m/s]
4,000
10 s
3,500 0.1 s
0.001 s
3,000
2,500
b 400
300
10 s 0.1 s
1,000/Q
200
100
0
-1 0 1 2 3
Frequency [log(Hz)]
Figure 1. (a) Phase velocity and (b) attenuation versus
frequency of P1-wave in the fully saturated Berea sandstone.
model predicts that the attenuation peak at 0.03 Hz
corresponds to W = 250 s and the peak at 1.5 kHz
corresponds to W = 0.002 ms. The energy loss at the
lower frequency is attributed to mesoscopic flow (the
so-called Biot-Gardner effect). From (37), we obtain
m 12 cm, which is two times larger than the diame-
ter (5 cm) of the sample. On the other hand, the energy
loss at the higher frequency is associated with micro-
scopic flow and the typical aspect ratio of apertures is
estimated using (36) as 6 104 .
In partially saturated porous media, capillary relax-
ation can be induced by mesoscopic flow of the
non-wetting fluid due to existence of heterogeneous
fluid distribution in the pores such as the patchy sat-
uration. The pattern of fluid distribution in a rock
depends upon the saturating path (Cadoret et al. 1995):
a wetting process used to saturate a rock results in
homogeneous saturation, whereas a drying process
produces patchy saturation. If the non-wetting fluid is
a gas, the gas phase is interconnected in the pore space
at low to moderate saturation. Therefore at low to mod-
erate saturation, due to the high mobility of the gas, N
is very small, and the energy loss induced by the local
gas flow is negligible. At high saturation, however,
the gas is trapped in the wetting fluid, and the coales-
cence and separation of gas bubbles at meso-scale can
attenuate significant wave energy. In this case, N is
nonzero.
For homogeneous rocks saturated through the wet-
ting process, the moisture content is homogeneously
Copyright 2005 Taylor & Francis Group plc, London, UK
= 0.002 ms
250 s
60
1,000/Q
40
20
0
= 0.001 s -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4
Frequency [log(Hz)]
Figure 2. Bulk attenuation QK1 versus frequency for the
fully saturated Harz quartzite with two distinct relaxation
Biot loss times.
4 5 6 7
distributed in the pores and no significant mesoscopic
liquid flow occurs and W 0 s. If saturation is not
extremely high, due to high compressibility and mobil-
ity of the gas, we also expect that N 0 s. This set of
(W , N ) leads to the lower bound of wave velocity,
since at the same saturation the rock with uniformly
distributed fluid has the smallest rigidity. For the rocks
saturated through the drying process, if the wetting
fluid patches are fully undrained, the rock achieves
the largest rigidity. From these remarks, it is expected
that, at low to moderate saturation, the upper bound
of velocity is obtained by setting (W , N ) = (, 0) s,
and for high saturation, the upper bound of velocity
can be calculated with (W , N ) = (, ) s. Figure 3a
illustrates that the model accurately predicts the wave
velocity bounds for Estaillades limestone (Cadoret
et al. 1995).
The model predicts very well the wave velocity
in uniformly saturated rocks by setting W 0 s and
N 0 s, but significantly underestimates the attenua-
tion (not shown here). The discrepancy is attributed to
the possible intrinsic material heterogeneity existing
in the porous material. At any saturation, reasonable
values of W and N should be those at which both pre-
dicted velocity and attenuation approximately equal
the measured data. Based on this argument, we cal-
culate the saturation dependence of attenuation based
on the velocity data. Figure 3b demonstrates the good
agreement between the predicted attenuations and the
measurements for Estaillades limestone. In particu-
lar, our model correctly predicts an attenuation peak
at high saturation. The attenuation peak at high satu-
ration was commonly observed in partially saturated
rocks (Murphy 1982, Yin et al. 1992). At 90% sat-
uration, KN 105 Pa, kN 103 , N 10 s, and we
estimate m 1 cm. This size is comparable to that
185
 a ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
3,200
Upper bound
Phase velocity [m/s]
3,000
2,800
Lower bound
2,600
80
b distribution. Geophysics 59: 12221236.
60
1,000/Q
40
20
0 Biot, M. A. 1962. Generalized theory of acoustic propaga-
20 40 60
Degree of saturation [%]
Figure 3. Variation of (a) phase velocity [the thin
solid line using (W , N ) = (0, 0) s; the thin dashed
line using (W , N ) = (, 0) s; and the thick solid line
using (W , N ) = (, ) s] and (b) attenuation [dashed
line = predicted wetting process; solid line = predicted drying
process] with saturation for P1-wave at 1 kHz in Estaillades
limestone. Data points are calculated from the measured
velocities and attenuations of extensional and shear waves
(Cadoret et al. 1995, 1998; solid stars = wetting process;
empty stars = drying process).
observed through the X-ray CAT scan (Cadoret et al.
1995, 1998).
5 CONCLUSIONS
The model presented here consistently describes the
acoustical behaviour of both fully and partially sat-
urated rocks over a broad range of frequencies. The
model calculations point to the importance of atten-
uation data in extracting the information on the local
fluid distribution and the local structure of rocks. The
agreement between the theory and experiments sug-
gests that the new model captures the sensitivity of
attenuation to local material heterogeneity. In addition,
the new model depends only upon measurable mate-
rial parameters and capillary relaxation times. The
relaxation times can be evaluated through either the
characterization of local structure of rocks or the mea-
surements of wave velocity and attenuation. Due to
the similarity of porous rocks and other porous media
in living or non-living matters, our model should have
broad applicability in analysing the seismic behaviour
of fluid-saturated porous media that are ubiquitous on
our planet.
Copyright 2005 Taylor & Francis Group plc, London, UK
Financial support for this research was provided by the
U.S. National Science Foundation under grants CMS-
0112950 and CMS-0301457.
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