Application of 3D time domain boundary element formulation to wave propagation in poroelastic solids

The dynamic responses of fluid-saturated semi-infinite porous continua to transient excitations such as seismic waves or ground vibrations are important in the design of soil-structure systems. Blot's theory of porous media governs the wave propagation in a porous elastic solid infiltrated with fluid. The significant difference to an elastic solid is the appearance of the so-called slow compressional wave. The most powerful methodology to tackle wave propagation in a semi-infinite homogeneous poroelastic domain is the boundary element method (BEM). To model the dynamic behavior of a poroelastic material in the time domain, the time domain fundamental solution is needed. Such solution however does not exist in closed form. The recently developed 'convolution quadrature method', proposed by Lubich, utilizes the existing Laplace transformed fundamental solution and makes it possible to work in the time domain. Hence. applying this quadrature formula to the time dependent boundary integral equation, a time-stepping procedure is obtained based only on the Laplace domain fundamental solution acid a linear multistep method. Finally, two examples show both the accuracy of the proposed time-stepping procedure and the appearance of the slow compressional wave, additionally to the other waves known from elastodynamics. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.