Lubrication pressure and fractional viscous damping effects on the spring-block model of earthquakes

Abstract

We examine the dynamical behaviours of the “single mass-spring” model for earthquakes considering lubrication pressure effects on pre-existing faults and viscous fractional damping. The lubrication pressure supports a part of the load, thereby reducing the normal stress and the associated friction across the gap. During the co-seismic phase, all of the strain accumulated during the inter-seismic duration does not recover; a fraction of this strain remains as a result of viscous relaxation. Viscous damping friction makes it possible to study rocks at depth possessing visco-elastic behaviours. At increasing depths, rock deformation gradually transitions from brittle to ductile. The fractional derivative is based on the properties of rocks, including information about previous deformation events (i.e., the so-called memory effect). Increasing the fractional derivative can extend or delay the transition from stick-slip oscillation to a stable equilibrium state and even suppress it. For the single block model, the interactions of the introduced lubrication pressure and viscous damping are found to give rise to oscillation death, which corresponds to aseismic fault behaviour. Our result shows that the earthquake occurrence increases with increases in both the damping coefficient and the lubrication pressure. We have also revealed that the accumulation of large stresses can be controlled via artificial lubrication.