Electroacoustic Logging and Joule Heating

It is well known that electromagnetic field excites acoustic wave in a porous elastic medium saturated with fluid electrolyte due to electrokinetic conversion effect. Pride's equations describing this process are written in isothermal approximation. Update of these equations, which allows including influence of Joule heating on acoustic waves propagation into account, is proposed here. This update includes terms describing the initiation of additional acoustic waves excited by thermoelastic stresses and the heat conduction equation with right side defined by Joule heating. Results of numerical modelling of several problems of propagation of acoustic waves excited by an electric field source with and without consideration of Joule heating effect in their statements are presented. From these results, it follows that influence of Joule heating should be taken into account at the numerical simulation of electro-acoustic logging and at the interpretation of its log data.