Active Travel-Time Tomography using a Distributed Acoustic Sensing Array

Abstract:

Distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) is a sensor array used for monitoring ground motion by utilizing the interaction of light pulses with sections of a fiber-optic cable. In September 2013 a field test was conducted at the NEES@UCSB Garner Valley field site in Southern California incorporating DAS technology. A 762-meter-long fiber-optic cable was trenched to a depth of about 0.3 m in a rectangular design with two interior diagonal segments. The fiber was excited by a number of sources, including a 45 kN shear shaker and a smaller 450 N portable mass shaker, both of which were available through NEES@UCLA. In addition to these sources, signals were recorded from a minivib source and hammer blows on a steel plate, as well as 8 hours of overnight ambient noise recording. One goal of the field test was to evaluate the use of DAS for tomographic studies. The large number of measurement points inherent to DAS lends itself well to this type of study. Tomograms were constructed using two of the active-sources at multiple locations. There were 8 minivib locations within the array and 13 hammer locations along the boundary of the array. Travel-time data were collected with the DAS array. Two-dimensional velocity tomograms were constructed for different resolutions from the two active sources and compared. In all the images, the lowest velocities lie near the center of the array with higher velocities surrounding this area. The impact results, however, may contain an artifact due to multiple propagation modes. This research is part of the DOE’s PoroTomo project.