Evolutions of friction properties and acoustic emission source parameters associated with large sliding

Abstract:

It was demonstrated by Yabe (2002) that friction properties and AE (acoustic emission) activities evolve with accumulation of sliding. However, large sliding distances of ~65 mm in his experiments were achieved by recurring ~10 mm sliding on the same fault. The evolution of friction coefficient was discontinuous, when rock samples were reset. Further, normal stress was not kept constant. To overcome these problems and to reexamine the evolutions of friction properties and AE activities with continuous large sliding under a constant normal stress, we developed a rotary shear apparatus. The evolutions of friction and AE up to ~80 mm sliding under a normal stress of 5 MPa were investigated. Rate dependence of friction was the velocity strengthening (a-b>0 in rate and state friction law) at the beginning. The value of a-b gradually decreased with sliding to negative (velocity weakening). Then, it took a constant negative value, when the sliding reached a critical distance. The m-value of Ishimoto-Iida’s relation of AE activity increased with sliding at the beginning and converged to a constant value at the critical sliding distance. The m-value showed a negative rate dependence at the beginning, but became neutral after sliding of the critical distance. The sliding distances required to converge the a-b value, the m-value and the rate dependence of the m-value are almost identical to one another. These results are the same as those by Yabe (2002), suggesting the intermission of sliding little affected the evolutions. We, then, examined evolutions of AE source parameters such as source radii and stress drops. The average source radius was constant over the whole sliding distance, while the average stress drop decreased at the beginning of sliding, and converged to a constant value. The sliding distance required to the conversion was the same as that for the above mentioned evolutions of friction property or AE activity.