Analysis of boundary friction effect on the homogenization process of compacted bentonite/claystone mixture with technological voids upon hydration

Pre-compacted MX80 bentonite/Callovo-Oxfordian (COx) claystone mixture has been proposed to backfill and seal the underground galleries for radioactive waste disposal in France. While emplacing these pre-compacted blocks, technological voids are created between the blocks and the host rock and among the blocks themselves. It is expected that homogenization process will take place over time for the structure constructed with pre-compacted blocks upon hydration. This study investigated the boundary friction effect on such a process. Results showed that after the filling of technological voids, the soil far from the technological voids would swell further, while those near the voids would be compressed under the welling pressure generated by the soil behind, resulting in an increase in homogeneity in terms of dry density distribution. However, this homogenization process would stop after a certain time. Further examination showed that the homogenization process ended when the maximum boundary friction force became equal to or higher than the vector sum of swelling forces in the radial direction. Based on the force equilibrium and the mass conservation, the final dry density distribution was estimated. Comparison between the estimation and the measurement showed a good agreement, indicating the relevance of the identified mechanism related to boundary friction.

     

Identification Criteria for Sources of T Waves Recorded in French Polynesia

—?From a data set of 150 digital records of T phases from 71 sources obtained on seismometers of the Polynesian Seismic Network, we define a discriminant separating earthquake and explosion sources, which uses the maximum amplitude of recorded ground velocity, measured on its envelope, e _Max (in μm/s), and the duration of the phase measured at 1/3 of maximum amplitude, τ_1/3 (in seconds). Earthquake sources and man-made explosions are effectively separated in a log-log space by the straight line ¶¶log₁₀ e _Max = 4.9 log₁₀τ_1/3 - 4.1 .¶¶Other criteria in both the time and frequency domains fail to reliably separate the populations of the various kinds of events. The application of this technique to analog records of large-scale man-made explosions carried out in the 1960s confirms that it provides an adequate discriminant over 3.5 orders of magnitude of ground velocity.     

One-station estimates of seismic moments from the mantle magnitudeM m: The case of the regional field (1.5°≤Δ≤15°)

We extend to the regional field of distances the procedure of one-station estimation of seismic moments using the mantle magnitudeM _m, as introduced earlier in the case of teleseismic events. A theoretical analysis of the validity of the asymptotic expansion of normal modes in terms of surface waves, which was used in the development ofM _m, upholds the validity of the algorithm for distances as short as 1.5°. This is confirmed by the analysis of a dataset of 149 GEOSCOPE records obtained at distances ranging from 1.5 to 15°, from earthquakes with moments between 10²⁴ and 2.5×10²⁷ dyn-cm. The performance ofM _m as measured in terms of average residual with respect to published values ofM ₀, and standard deviation of the residuals, is not degraded in this distance range, with respect to the teleseismic case. This indicates that the mantle magnitudeM _mcan be reliably used at regional distances, notably for tsunami warning applications.     

Investigating the swelling pressure of highly compacted bentonite/sand mixtures under constant-volume conditions

Acta Geotechnica - Compacted bentonite/sand mixtures are often considered as sealing/backfilling materials in deep geological disposal for radioactive waste. This study investigates the swelling...     

Automatic detection,location and quantification of earthquakes: Application to tsunami warning

We describe a fully automated seismic event detection and location system, providing for real-time estimates of the epicentral parameters of both local and distant earthquakes. The system uses 12 telemetered short-period stations, with a regional aperture of 350 km, as well as two 3-component broad-band stations. Detection and location of teleseismic events is achieved independently and concurrently on the short-period and long-period channels. The long-period data is then used to obtain an estimate of the seismic momentM ₀ of the earthquake through the mantle magnitudeM _m, as introduced byOkal andTalandier (1989). In turn, this estimate ofM ₀ is used to infer the expected tsunami amplitude at Papeete, within 15 minutes of the recording of Rayleigh waves. The performance of the method is discussed in terms of the accuracy of the epicentral parameters and seismic moment obtained in real time, as compared to the values later published by the reporting agencies. Our estimates are usually within 3 degrees of the reported epicenter, and the standard deviation on the seismic moment only 0.19 unit of magnitude for a population of 154 teleseismic events.     

Quantification of Hydrophone Records of the 2004 Sumatra Tsunami

The 2004 Sumatra-Andaman tsunami was recorded by hydrophones of the International Monitoring System at Site H08 near Diego Garcia, notably in frequency bands extending outside the range of the Shallow Water Approximation. Despite the severe high-pass filtering involved in this instrumentation, we show that the spectral amplitudes recovered around T = 87 s can be successfully explained by generation from the seismic source, in the framework of the normal mode theory of tsunami excitation. At the lower frequencies characteristic of more conventional tsunami waves (800 to 3200 s), the signal is probably present in the hydrophone records, but reliable deconvolution of its spectral amplitude is precluded by the fact that the instrumental filters lowered the tsunami signal to the level of resolution of the instrument digitizer. In the context of distant tsunami warning, hydrophone records could provide useful insight into high-frequency tsunami components, and even at lower, more conventional, frequencies, provided that an unfiltered channel could be recorded routinely.     

Investigating the hydromechanical behaviour of bentonite pellets by swelling pressure tests and discrete element modelling

Acta Geotechnica - Bentonite pellet mixtures are candidate material for the sealing of galleries in radioactive waste disposals. The hydromechanical behaviour of assemblies of bentonite pellets is...     

Dynamical contribution to sea surface salinity variations in the eastern Gulf of Guinea based on numerical modelling

In this study, we analyse the seasonal variability of the sea surface salinity (SSS) for two coastal regions of the Gulf of Guinea from 1995 to 2006 using a high resolution model (1/12°) embedded in a Tropical Atlantic (1/4°) model. Compared with observations and climatologies, our model demonstrates a good capability to reproduce the seasonal and spatial variations of the SSS and mixed layer depth. Sensitivity experiments are carried out to assess the respective impacts of precipitations and river discharge on the spatial structure and seasonal variations of the SSS in the eastern part of the Gulf of Guinea. In the Bight of Biafra, both precipitations and river runoffs are necessary to observe permanent low SSS values but the river discharge has the strongest impact on the seasonal variations of the SSS. South of the equator, the Congo river discharge alone is sufficient to explain most of the SSS structure and its seasonal variability. However, mixed layer budgets for salinity reveal the necessity to take into account the horizontal and vertical dynamics to explain the seasonal evolution of the salinity in the mixed layer. Indeed evaporation, precipitations and runoffs represent a relatively small contribution to the budgets locally at intraseasonal to seasonal time scales. Horizontal advection always contribute to spread the low salinity coastal waters offshore and thus decrease the salinity in the eastern Gulf of Guinea. For the Bight of Biafra and the Congo plume region, the strong seasonal increase of the SSS observed from May/June to August/September, when the trade winds intensify, results from a decreasing offshore spread of freshwater associated with an intensification of the salt input from the subsurface. In the Congo plume region, the subsurface salt comes mainly from advection due to a strong upwelling but for the Bight of Biafra, entrainment and vertical mixing also play a role. The seasonal evolution of horizontal advection in the Bight of Biafra is mainly driven by eddy correlations between salinity and velocities, but it is not the case in the Congo plume.     

Single-station estimates of the seismic moment of the 1960 Chilean and 1964 Alaskan earthquakes,using the mantle magnitudeM m

Measurements are taken of the mantle magnitudeM _m , developed and introduced in previous papers, in the case of the 1960 Chilean and 1964 Alaskan earthquakes, by far the largest events ever recorded instrumentally. We show that theM _m algorithm recovers the seismic moment of these gigantic earthquakes with an accuracy (typically 0.2 to 0.3 units of magnitude, or a factor of 1.5 to 2 on the seismic moment) comparable to that achieved on modern, digital, datasets. In particular, this study proves that the mantle magnitudeM _m does not saturate for large events, as do standard magnitude scales, but rather keeps growing with seismic moment, even for the very largest earthquakes. We further prove that the algorithm can be applied in unfavorable experimental conditions, such as instruments with poor response at mantle periods, seismograms clipped due to limited recording dynamics, or even on microbarograph records of air coupled Rayleigh waves.In addition, we show that it is feasible to use acoustic-gravity air waves generated by those very largest earthquakes, to obtain an estimate of the seismic moment of the event along the general philosophy of the magnitude concept: a single-station measurement ignoring the details of the earthquake's focal mechanism and exact depth.