The interaction of moving shock waves with short length elastic porous aluminum samples of various porosities was investigated in a shock tube facility in a setup where the specimens were placed in front of a long rod of a modified Hopkinson Bar. High frequency response miniature pressure transducers and semiconductor strain gages were used to measure the pore gas pressure and the transmitted stress wave to the rod respectively. It was found that the effect of pore gas flow on the total stress history was inversely proportional to the material's porosity, permeability and length. For low porosity aluminum samples due to the very low and very confined volumetric gas flow rate within the foam, a minimal contribution of the gas pressure within the pores to the total stress was observed and the magnitude of stress wave transmitted to the rod was amplified mainly due to the lower acoustic impedance of the foams relative to the rod. However, in a high porosity aluminum specimens with a high permeability and low inertial coefficient, there is a high volumetric gas flow rate within the foam, where faster wave interactions within the gas phase take place resulting in an earlier arrival of the rarefaction wave and restricting the magnitude of the total stress to reach its value when no gas flow into the pores is allowed. Due to this out of phase interaction between the wave propagating within the gas phase and the fast wave propagating in the solid matrix, the magnitude of the stress wave transmitted to the rod was slightly attenuated when the high porous foam was placed in front of the rod. It was also found that the aluminum foams deviate from a linearly elastic medium behavior and demonstrate dispersive and dissipative properties which result in the gradual rise or fall of the stress and damping of the oscillations. The pore gas flow influences the profile of the oscillations by introducing dissipation and dispersion into the propagating wave in the solid phase due to the nonlinear nature of the solid-fluid interaction. Further data analysis included a decomposition of the measured time-dependent signals into two components, one with low frequency content which is argued that it is associated with Biot's slow wave and one with high frequency contributions which corresponds to the fast wave propagation. It is also argued that this decomposition can differentiate the effects of gas pressure in the pores from the stress in the matrix of the porous medium. © 2011 American Institute of Physics.