Effects of Weakly Nonlinear Water Waves on Soft Poroelastic Bed with Finite Thickness

Abstract

Since porous material is usually of a finite thickness in nature, the effects of periodically nonlinear water waves propagating over a soft poroelastic bed with finite thickness are hence noticed and studied in this work. The water waves are simulated by potential theory while the porous bed is governed by Biot’s theory of poroelasticity herein. The conventional Stokes expansion of water waves based on a one-parameter perturbation expansion fails to solve the soft poroelastic bed problem; therefore, the boundary layer correction approach combined with a two-parameter perturbation expansion is proposed, which enables us to solve the problem of soft poroelastic bed with finite thickness. The results are compared to the similar problem with an infinite-thickness porous bed. The boundary effects of the impervious rock are significant on wave-induced pore water pressure and effective stresses, but are of very little significance on wave profiles at the free surface and the porous bed surface. However, the rigid boundary is insignificant to the pore water pressure and effective stresses when the thickness of porous bed is larger than about one wavelength.