A symmetric boundary integral approach to transient poroelastic analysis

 The problem of the transient quasi-static analysis of a poroelastic body subjected to a history of external actions is formulated in terms of four boundary integral equations, using time-dependent Green's functions of the “free” poroelastic space. Some of these Green's functions, not available in the literature are derived “ad hoc”. The boundary integral operator constructed is shown to be symmetric with respect to a time-convolutive bilinear form so that the boundary solution is characterized by a variational property and its approximation preserving symmetry can be achieved by a Galerkin boundary element procedure. Communicated by S. N. Atluri, 1 July 1996