Comments on “On pore fluid viscosity and the wave properties of saturated granular materials including marine sediments” [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 122, 1486–1501 (2007)]

The ability of the grain shearing (GS) and viscous grain shearing (VGS) models to relate geophysical and acoustic properties is tested by a method based on the claimed tight coupling between compressional and shear wave speeds and attenuations, which allows the test result to be quantified in a single parameter. The VGS model is claimed to provide a better fit to the measured sound speed and attenuation in sandy sediments below 10 kHz. In situ measurements of wave speeds and attenuations from the Sediment Acoustics Experiment 1999 (SAX99) and published laboratory measurements by Prasad and Meissner [Geophysics 57, 710–719 (1992)] on a number of sand samples were used to test the models. By this metric, the SAX99 data show that the VGS model is no better than the original GS model because the improved agreement of compressional wave speeds at low frequencies is achieved at the expense of gross overestimation of the shear wave attenuation. When applied to the measurements by Prasad and Meissner, it is shown that the GS models are not applicable at any significant confining pressures, and at zero pressure they may only be applicable to a small subset of the sand samples.