The main objective of this research is to develop an understanding of the dissipative characteristics of fluid-filled poro-elastic media. The research explores one basic aspect of the Biot equations, namely the characteristics of the wave of the second kind. Fundamental solutions will be developed that take into account the effects of boundaries as well as the effects of material in homogenetics. A basic assumption of allowing for displacement discontinuities in the poro- elastic functions will be made in order to obtain solutions which can describe significant fluid-solid relative motion. The relevance of such dissipative waves to various marine applications will be investigated.
