1. A system for determining poroelastic mechanical properties of porous materials comprising: A dynamic mechanical analyzer comprising an actuator and a force measuring device, the actuator adapted to apply a displacement in a first axis to a material over a range of frequencies, and the force measuring device adapted to monitor a mechanical response of the material; A processor coupled to drive the actuator and to read the mechanical response, the processor coupled to execute machine-readable instructions of a poroelastic material model recorded in a memory; The memory also containing limits; The memory containing machine-readable instructions of a convergence procedure for determining parameters for the poroelastic model such that the model estimates the material response to within the limits.