Feasibility study on joint tomography of refraction and reflection seismic waves for geotechnical purposes: a preliminary result

Abstract

Many developing regions are subject to infrastructure magnification thus green-sustainable infrastructure has always been a relevant concern for most regulators and engineers. In order to support better urban planning, civil engineering operations, and environmental studies, an ample supply of information regarding the neighbouring environment is a must. This includes the information from the Earth’s subsurface, particularly the mechanical properties of soil and rock, on which the planning or action is executed. Complementarily, geophysical measurements utilizing the active seismic method can effectively provide an accurate approximation of the properties. This method includes generating seismic waves using the non-invasive artificial seismic source which then be collected on the Earth’s surface by a number of detectors called geophones. The recorded seismic waves bring information about the medium through which they propagate. They can provide the mechanical properties of the medium after applying some sequences of data interpretation techniques. Conventionally, this is done using only one type of seismic wave, either the refracted or reflected waves. In this study, we build a new procedure incorporating these two types of seismic waves to refine the inferred model. The result shows a promising improvement of the P-wave velocity model in terms of its resolution.