Enhanced weak integral formulation for the mixed (u,p) poroelastic equations

Recently Atalla et al. [J. Acoust. Sec. Am. 104, 1444-1452 (1998)] and Debergue et nl. [J. Acoust. Sec. Am. 106, 2383-2390 (1999)] presented a weak integral formulation and the general boundary conditions for a mixed pressure-displacement version of the Blot's poroelasticity equations. Finite element discretization was applied to the formulation to solve 3D vibro-acoustic-problems involving elastic; acoustic, and poroelastic domains. In this letter, an enhancement of the weak integral formulation is proposed to facilitate its finite element implementation. It is shown that this formulation simplifies the assembly process of the poroelastic medium, the imposition of its boundary conditions, and its coupling with elastic and acoustic media. (C) 2001 Acoustical Society of America.