Radiation from flexural vibrations of the baseplate and their effect on the accuracy of traveltime measurements

We analyse the problem of radiation of seismic waves by a vibroseis source when the baseplate is subject to flexure. A theoretical model is proposed to account for baseplate flexure, generalizing the well‐known model of the vibroseis source of Sallas and Weber, which was developed for a rigid plate. Using the model proposed, we analyse the effect of flexure on the properties of seismic waves. We show that the flexure does not contribute to the far‐field and mainly affects the readings of the reference accelerometer that is used to measure the force applied to the ground; these readings generally become dependent on the location of the sensor on the plate. For muddy and sandy soils, the effect of flexure on baseplate‐acceleration measurements is nonetheless pronounced at the high end of the vibroseis frequency band only (～100 Hz), and is negligible at all frequencies for stiffer soils. The corresponding phase lags introduced by the flexural vibrations at high frequencies lead to errors in the traveltime measurements (through the cross‐correlation function) of up to 0.6 ms for muddy soils and less for denser soils. We show the existence of an optimal position of the reference sensor on the baseplate and also propose a general method of eliminating the phase lag due to the baseplate flexure in acceleration measurements.