Transversely isotropic poroelasticity arising from thin isotropic layers

Percolation phenomena play central roles in the field of poroelasticity, where two distinct sets of percolating continua intertwine. A connected solid frame forms the basis of the elastic behavior of a poroelastic medium in the presence of confining forces, while connected pores permit a percolating fluid (if present) to influence the mechanical response of the system from within. The present paper discusses isotropic and anisotropic poroelastic media and establishes general formulas for the behavior of transversely isotropic poroelasticity arising from laminations of isotropic components. The Backus averaging method is shown to provide elementary means of constructing general formulas. The results for confined fluids are then compared with the more general Gassmann formulas that must be satisfied by any anisotropic poroelastic medium and found to be in complete agreement

Seismic waves in rocks with fluids and fractures

Seismic wave propagation through the earth is often stronglyaffected by the presence of fractures. When these fractures are filledwith fluids (oil, gas, water, CO2, etc.), the type and state of the fluid(liquid or gas) can make a large difference in the response of theseismic waves. This paper summarizes recent work on methods ofdeconstructing the effects of fractures, and any fluids within thesefractures, on seismic wave propagation as observed in reflection seismicdata. One method explored here is Thomsen's weak anisotropy approximationfor wave moveout (since fractures often induce elastic anisotropy due tononuniform crack-orientation statistics). Another method makes use ofsome very convenient fracture parameters introduced previously thatpermit a relatively simple deconstruction of the elastic and wavepropagation behavior in terms of a small number of fracture parameters(whenever this is appropriate, as is certainly the case for small crackdensities). Then, the quantitative effects of fluids on thesecrack-influence parameters are shown to be directly related to Skempton scoefficient B of undrained poroelasticity (where B typically ranges from0 to 1). In particular, the rigorous result obtained for the low crackdensity limit is that the crack-influence parameters are multiplied by afactor (1 ? B) for undrained systems. It is also shown how fractureanisotropy affects Rayleigh wave speed, and how measured Rayleigh wavespeeds can be used to infer shear wave speed of the fractured medium.Higher crack density results are also presented by incorporating recentsimulation data on such cracked systems

Nonlinear least squares and regularization

A problem frequently encountered in the earth sciences requires deducing physical parameters of the system of interest from measurements of some other (hopefully) closely related physical quantity. The obvious example in seismology (either surface reflection seismology or crosswell seismic tomography) is the use of measurements of sound wave traveltime to deduce wavespeed distribution in the earth and then subsequently to infer the values of other physical quantities of interest such as porosity, water or oil saturation, permeability, etc. The author presents and discusses some general ideas about iterative nonlinear output least-squares methods. The main result is that, if it is possible to do forward modeling on a physical problem in a way that permits the output (i.e., the predicted values of some physical parameter that could be measured) and the first derivative of the same output with respect to the model parameters (whatever they may be) to be calculated numerically, then it is possible (at least in principle) to solve the inverse problem using the method described. The main trick learned in this analysis comes from the realization that the steps in the model updates may have to be quite small in some cases for the implied guarantees of convergence to be realized

Network asymptotics for high contrast impedance tomography

Fluid contaminant plumes underground are often electrically conducting and, therefore, can be imaged using electrical impedance tomography. The authors introduce an output least-squares method for impedance tomography problems that have regions of high conductivity surrounded by regions of lower conductivity. The high conductivity is modeled on network approximation results from an asymptotic analysis and its recovery is based on this model. The smoothly varying part of the conductivity is recovered by a linearization process as is usual. The authors present the results of several numerical experiments that illustrate the performance of the method

Geometry of Frictionless and Frictional Sphere Packings

We study static packings of frictionless and frictional spheres in three dimensions, obtained via molecular dynamics simulations, in which we vary particle hardness, friction coefficient, and coefficient of restitution. Although frictionless packings of hard-spheres are always isostatic (with six contacts) regardless of construction history and restitution coefficient, frictional packings achieve a multitude of hyperstatic packings that depend on system parameters and construction history. Instead of immediately dropping to four, the coordination number reduces smoothly from $z=6$ as the friction coefficient $\mu$ between two particles is increased.Comment: 6 pages, 9 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.

Rate of Convergence to Barenblatt Profiles for the Fast Diffusion Equation

We study the asymptotic behaviour of positive solutions of the Cauchy problem for the fast diffusion equation near the extinction time. We find a continuum of rates of convergence to a self-similar profile. These rates depend explicitly on the spatial decay rates of initial data

A Model for the Elasticity of Compressed Emulsions

We present a new model to describe the unusual elastic properties of compressed emulsions. The response of a single droplet under compression is investigated numerically for different Wigner-Seitz cells. The response is softer than harmonic, and depends on the coordination number of the droplet. Using these results, we propose a new effective inter-droplet potential which is used to determine the elastic response of a monodisperse collection of disordered droplets as a function of volume fraction. Our results are in excellent agreement with recent experiments. This suggests that anharmonicity, together with disorder, are responsible for the quasi-linear increase of $G$ and $\Pi$ observed at $\varphi_c$.Comment: RevTeX with psfig-included figures and a galley macr

Long-Term Variations in the Growth and Decay Rates of Sunspot Groups

Using the combined Greenwich (1874-1976) and Solar Optical Observatories Network (1977-2009) data on sunspot groups, we study the long-term variations in the mean daily rates of growth and decay of sunspot groups. We find that the minimum and the maximum values of the annually averaged daily mean growth rates are ~52% per day and ~183% per day, respectively, whereas the corresponding values of the annually averaged daily mean decay rates are ~21% per day and ~44% per day, respectively. The average value (over the period 1874-2009) of the growth rate is about 70% more than that of the decay rate. The growth and the decay rates vary by about 35% and 13%, respectively, on a 60-year time-scale. From the beginning of Cycle 23 the growth rate is substantially decreased and near the end (2007-2008) the growth rate is lowest in the past about 100 years.Comment: 1 table, 13 figures, accepted by Solar Physic

Transverse instability and its long-term development for solitary waves of the (2+1)-Boussinesq equation

The stability properties of line solitary wave solutions of the (2+1)-dimensional Boussinesq equation with respect to transverse perturbations and their consequences are considered. A geometric condition arising from a multi-symplectic formulation of this equation gives an explicit relation between the parameters for transverse instability when the transverse wavenumber is small. The Evans function is then computed explicitly, giving the eigenvalues for transverse instability for all transverse wavenumbers. To determine the nonlinear and long time implications of transverse instability, numerical simulations are performed using pseudospectral discretization. The numerics confirm the analytic results, and in all cases studied, transverse instability leads to collapse.Comment: 16 pages, 8 figures; submitted to Phys. Rev.