Wave propagation of buried spherical SH-, P1-, P2- and SV-waves in a layered poroelastic half-space

•Dynamic responses of a layered poroelastic half-space due to buried spherical SH-, P1-, P2- and SV-waves are presented.•The formulation is verified by comparing results with those obtained by Lamb's method in both elastic and poroelastic media.•Numerical results in both the frequency and time domains are presented and some useful conclusions are drawn.•The present solutions form a complete set of fundamental solutions applicable to indirect boundary integral equation method.

Few studies have investigated the wave propagation of spherical sources in a layered half-space. In this paper, based on Biot's theory of poroelastic media, the exact anti-axisymmetric (cylindrical SH-waves) and axisymmetric (cylindrical P1-P2-SV waves) stiffness matrices for a layered poroelastic half-space are derived. Then the dynamic responses due to buried spherical SH-, P1-, P2- and SV-waves in a layered poroelastic half-space are studied by using the direct stiffness method combined with the Hankel transform. The present solutions are in good agreements with those in a uniform pure elastic half-space as well as a uniform poroelastic half-space. These solutions have the advantages that all of the parameters in the solutions have explicit physical meanings and the thickness of discrete layers does not affect the precision of calculation; thus, the presented formulations are very convenient for engineering applications. Numerical calculations are performed in both the frequency and time domains by taking buried spherical SH-, P1- and SV- waves in a uniform poroelastic half-space and in a single poroelastic layer over a poroelastic half-space as examples. The numerical results show that wave propagation of spherical sources in a layered half-space can be significantly different from that in a uniform half-space; the dynamic responses are highly dependent on the saturated parameters, vibration frequency and the surface drained condition; the presence of the underlying half-space makes the time histories of the dynamic responses in a single layered half-space much more complicated with much longer duration.