Response of a solid infinite cylinder embedded in a poroelastic medium and subjected to a lateral load

This paper presents an analytical solution for the response of a poroelastic medium around a laterally loaded rigid cylinder using Biot’s consolidation theory. A plane-strain section of the cylinder-porous medium system is considered and the problem is formulated in polar coordinates. Expressions for the pore fluid pressure, stresses and displacements in the Laplace domain are derived analytically. The inverse of the Laplace transform is evaluated numerically using an efficient scheme. Curves showing decay of the pore fluid pressure with time, the corresponding change in mean effective stress and the variation of displacement, are plotted in non-dimensional form.