Full Waveform Inversion Methods for Source and Media Characterization before and after SPE5

Abstract:

The Source Physics Experiment (SPE) was designed to advance our understanding of explosion-source phenomenology and subsequent wave propagation through the development of innovative physics-based models. Ultimately, these models will be used for characterizing explosions, which can occur with a variety of yields, depths of burial, and in complex media. To accomplish this, controlled chemical explosions were conducted in a granite outcrop at the Nevada Nuclear Security Test Site. These explosions were monitored with extensive seismic and infrasound instrumentation both in the near and far-field. Utilizing this data, we calculate predictions before the explosions occur and iteratively improve our models after each explosion. Specifically, we use an adjoint-based full waveform inversion code that employs discontinuous Galerkin techniques to predict waveforms at station locations prior to the fifth explosion in the series (SPE5). The full-waveform inversions are performed using a realistic geophysical model based on local 3D tomography and inversions for media properties using previous shot data. The code has capabilities such as unstructured meshes that align with material interfaces, local polynomial refinement, and support for various physics and methods for implicit and explicit time-integration. The inversion results we show here evaluate these different techniques, which allows for model fidelity assessment (acoustic versus elastic versus anelastic, etc.). In addition, the accuracy and efficiency of several time-integration methods can be determined. Sandia National Laboratories is a multi-program laboratory managed and operated by Sandia Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Lockheed Martin Corporation, for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration under contract DE-AC04-94AL85000.