Effects of Contact Geometry of Faults on Transmission Waves

摘要

— In order to clarify the effects of contact geometry of faults on transmission waves, we have performed a series of experiments in which P and S waves with known wavelength were transmitted through an artificial fault. A pair of piezo-electric transducers (PZT) with various resonant frequency were used for the transmitter and the receiver. Parallel grooves were cut on disk surfaces and two disks were placed face to face with the grooves on one disk being perpendicular to those on the other disk. This yields evenly spaced square contacts on the fault. We regard the square contacts as asperity contacts, the size and the height of which were controlled by changing the width and the depth of the grooves. We found that the transmissivity of the waves is solely determined by the ratio of the groove depth/width to wavelength. The shallower and the narrower the groove depth and width are, the larger the amplitude of first arrival is for both P and S waves. When the groove depth is shallower than a quarter of wavelength, the effect of groove depth is negligible; deeper grooves significantly reduce the amplitude. We have made a mathematical model based on the stiffness of fault. By comparing the model calculations with the observation we found that the model has a limit at which the prediction by the model deviates from the data. The deviation occurs when the ratio of the groove depth/width to wavelength becomes 0.25. We refer to the wavelength as the critical wavelength. When the wavelength is larger than the critical wavelength, the observed data can be well explained by the model. Above this threshold, the model no longer fits the data. In this range, the amplitude of transmitted waves is found to be proportional to the real contact area. Although it is a kind of paradox that the amplitude, not the energy, is proportional to the real contact area, it is possibly explained by taking a non-uniform distribution of stress on the surface of the receiver PZT into account.