The two papers on exact results for effective constants in poroelasticity eventually lead to the following paper on general results for ``effective stress laws.''

J. G. Berryman, ``Effective stress for transport properties of inhomogeneous porous rock,'' J. Geophys. Res. 97, 17409-17424 (1992). +

Actually, there are many effective stress laws, but the situation is often oversimplified by stating that there is only one effective stress = the differential stress, taking the difference between the confining pressure and the pore pressure. In fact, there almost as many effective stress rules as there are physical variables!