Dynamic behaviour of saturated porous media; The generalized Biot formulation and its numerical solution

The basic equations of motion for porous media were established by Biot and despite many subsequent rederivations, are, with minor modifications, relevant today. However, some changes of variables and approximations are on occasion useful, and this paper discusses the alternative forms available and their relative efficiency of solution in the numerical context. Here penaity methods prove once again useful. The paper is illustrated with examples covering phenomena of different periods ranging froms hock excitation to slow consolidation which are treated in a single unified program.