A unified poroviscoelastic model with mesoscopic and microscopic heterogeneities

Abstract The wave-induced fluid flow (WIFF) is considered to be the main cause of dispersion and attenuation of seismic waves in fluid-saturated porous media. Among numerous theories, the mesoscopic and microscopic heterogeneities are considered to be the primary mechanisms causing the WIFF. Furthermore, in most rocks, the mesoscopic and microscopic heterogeneities exist simultaneously and can cause obvious transitions of the fast P-wave velocity, which means it is necessary to consider the influence of the two mechanisms on the dispersion and attenuation simultaneously. Numerous results have shown that the dispersions and attenuations caused by these two mechanisms can be approximated in terms of the Zener model. To combine the two mechanisms into a unified model, we introduce a new generalized Zener model into the Biot poroelasticity theory to obtain a new poroviscoelastic model. Comparisons between the numerical results and two groups of experimental data further confirm the validity of our new model.