Rayleigh waves in orthotropic fluid-saturated porous media

•The propagation of Rayleigh waves in orthotropic non-viscous fluid-saturated porous media is investigated.•Stroh’s formalism is obtained from the basic equations in matrix form.•The secular equation of the wave in explicit form is derived using the method of polarization vector.•It is not a complex equation as the one derived previously. It is a real equation.

In this paper, we are interested in the propagation of Rayleigh waves in orthotropic fluid-saturated porous media. This problem was investigated by Liu and Liu (2004). The authors have derived the secular equation of the wave but that secular equation is still in implicit form. The main aim of this paper is to derive explicit secular equation of the wave. By employing the method of polarization vector, the secular equations of Rayleigh waves in explicit form is obtained. This equation recovers the dispersion equation of Rayleigh waves propagating in pure orthotropic elastic half-spaces. Remarkably, the secular equation obtained is not a complex equation as the one derived by Liu and Liu, it is a really real equation.