• Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.132-142
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• 2009

The Tamar rift valley runs through the City of Launceston, Tasmania. Damage has occurred to city buildings due to earthquake activity in Bass Strait. The presence of the ancient valley, the Tamar valley, in-filled with soft sediments that vary rapidly in thickness from 0 to 250mover a few hundreds metres, is thought to induce a 2D resonance pattern, amplifying the surface motions over the valley and in Launceston. Spatially averaged coherency (SPAC), frequency-wavenumber (FK) and horizontal to vertical spectrum ratio (HVSR) microtremor survey methods are combined to identify and characterise site effects over the Tamar valley. Passive seismic array measurements acquired at seven selected sites were analysed with SPAC to estimate shear wave velocity (slowness) depth profiles. SPAC was then combined with HVSR to improve the resolution of these profiles in the sediments to an approximate depth of 125 m. Results show that sediments thicknesses vary significantly throughout Launceston. The top layer is composed of as much as 20m of very soft Quaternary alluvial sediments with a velocity from 50 m/s to 125 m/s. Shear-wave velocities in the deeper Tertiary sediment fill of the Tamar valley, with thicknesses from 0 to 250m vary from 400 m/s to 750 m/s. Results obtained using SPAC are presented at two selected sites (GUN and KPK) that agree well with dispersion curves interpreted with FK analysis. FK interpretation is, however, limited to a narrower range of frequencies than SPAC and seems to overestimate the shear wave velocity at lower frequencies. Observed HVSR are also compared with the results obtained by SPAC, assuming a layered earth model, and provide additional constraints on the shear wave slowness profiles at these sites. The combined SPAC and HVSR analysis confirms the hypothesis of a layered geology at the GUN site and indicates the presence of a 2D resonance pattern across the Tamar valley at the KPK site.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.29-42
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• 1999

The SASW (Spectral-Analysis-of-Surface-Waves) method, which evaluates the stiffness structure of the subsurface and structures nonintrusively and nondestructively, has been successfully used in the civil engineering applications. However, the SASW method assumes that the subsurface or structures consist of horizontal multi-layers, so that the method has some difficulty in continuously evaluating the integrity of a tunnel lining and a pavement system. This difficulty prevents the SASW method from being used to generate a tomographic image of stiffness for the subsurface or structures. Recently, the GPR technique which has the advantage of continuously evaluating integrity of the subsurface and structures has been popular. This advantage of GPR technique initiated the efforts to make the SASW method, which is superior to GPR and other nondestructive testing methods due to its capability of evaluating stiffness and modulus, be able to do continuous evaluation of stiffness structure, and the efforts finally lead to the development of \ulcornerTomographic SASW Technique.\ulcorner Tomographic SASW technique is a variation of the SASW method, and can generate a tomographic image of stiffness structure along the measurement line. The tomographic SASW technique was applied to the investigation of lateral variability of a sand box placed by the raining method for the purpose of verifying its effectiveness. Tomographic SASW measurements on the sand box revealed that the investigated sand box has different shear stiffness along the measurement line, which gave a clue of how to make a better raining device.

• Geotechnical Engineering
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.111-122
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• 1997

The calculation of phase velocities in Spectral-Analysis -of-Surface -Waves (SASW) meas urements requires unwrapping phase angles. In case of layered systems with strong stiffness contrast like a pavement system, conventional phase unwrapping algorithm to add in teger multiples of 2n to the principal value of a phase angle may lead to wrong phase volocities. This is because there is difficulty in counting the number of jumps in the phase spectrum especially at the receiver spacing where the measurements are in the transition Bone of defferent modes. A new phase interpretation scheme, called "Impulse Response Fil traction ( IRF) Technique," is proposed, which is based on the separation of wave groups by the filtration of the impulse response determinded between two receivers. The separation of a wave group is based on the impulse response filtered by using information from Gabor spectrogram, which visualizes the propagation of wave groups at the frequency -time space. The filtered impulse response leads to clear interpretation of phase spectrum, which eliminates difficulty in counting number of jumps in the phase spectrum. Verification of the IRF technique was performed by theoretical simulation of the SASW measurement on a pavement system which complicates wave propagation.opagation.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.297-305
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• 2006

The thermal ratcheting deformation at the reactor baffle and upper internal structure of the liquid metal reactor (LMR) can occur due to movement of the hot sodium free surface. In in-service inspection of reactor internals of LMR, a new inspection technique should be developed for the detection of the thermal ratcheting damage. In this study, an inspection technique using ultrasonic guided wave is proposed for the detection of the thermal ratcheting damage of cylindrical vessels. A 316L stainless steel cylindrical shell specimen has been prepared. The thermal ratchet structural tests were cyclically performed by heat-up up to $550^{\circ}C$ with steep temperature gradients along the axial direction after cool-down by cooling water. Ultrasonic guided wave propagation has been characterized by analysis of dispersion curve of the stainless steel plate. The zero-order antisymmetric $A_0$ guided wave has been selected as the optimal mode for detection of the ratcheting deformation. It is confirmed that the thermal ratcheting deformation can be detected by the measurement of transit time difference of circumferentially propagated $A_0$ guided waves.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.25 no.8
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• pp.774-783
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• 2004

The S wave velocity and Q$s^{-1}$ structure of the uppermost part of the soil in Nakdong Delta area have been obtained to determine the characteristics of the forementioned soil. The phase and attenuation coefficients of multichannel seismic records were inverted to obtain the S wave velocity and Q$s^{-1}$ structure of the soil. The inversion results have been compared with the borehole measurements of the area. The seismic signal of the nearest geophone from a seismic source was used as the source signal to obtain the attenuation coefficients. Amplitude ratios of the signal at each geophone to the source signal wave plotted as a function of distance for the frequency range between 10 Hz and 45 Hz. The slope of a linear regression line which fits amplitude ratio-distance relationship best for a given frequency was used as the attenuation coefficients for the frequency. The dispersion curve of Rayleigh waves and the attenuation coefficients were inverted to obtain the S-wave velocity and Q$s^{-1}$, respectively, in the uppermost 8 meter of soil layer. The borehole measurements of the area show that are two distinct layers; the upper 4 meter of silty-sand and the lower 4 meter of silty-clay. The inversion results indicate that the shear wave velocity of the upper layer is 80 m/sec and 40m/sec in the lower silty-clay layer. The spacial resolution of the shear wave velocity structure is very good down to a depth of 8 meter. The Q$s^{-1}$ in the upper silty-sand layer is 0.02 and increase to 0.03 in the lower silty-sand layer. The spacial resolution of quality factor is relatively good down to a depth of 5 meter, but very poor below the depth. In this study, the S-wave velocity is higher in the silty-clay and the Q$s^{-1}$ is smaller silty-sand than in the silty-clay. However, much more data should be analyzed and accumulated before making any generalization on the shear wave velocity and Q$s^{-1}$ of the sediments.