A Study of the Propagation of Compression Waves in Porous Medium Filled with Steam

Abstract

A preliminary investigation on the propagation of compression waves through a radial system of porous medium filled with steam has been conducted for the case of uniform and non-uniform basic temperature distributions. When a relatively weak pressure disturbance is introduced as a signal source in a uniform temperature system, it is found that the pressure disturbance decays away and smears out as time progresses. However, for the case of a nonuniform basic temperature distribution, the temperature gradient and fluid viscosity give significant effects on the reduction of pressure signal attenuation. The attenuation of the compression waves depends on the wave frequencies. For higher frequencies the strength of the signal decays rapidly, and for lower frequencies the signal could propagate farther away. It is found also that porosity and permeability distributions gives significant effects on the amplitude and the wave profiles..