The development and testing of a 2D laboratory seismic modelling system for heterogeneous structure investigations

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Lateral velocity variations and low velocity near-surface layers can produce strong scattered and guided waves which interfere with reflections and lead to severe imaging problems in seismic exploration. In order to investigate these specific problems by laboratory seismic modelling, a simple 2D ultrasonic model facility has been recently assembled within the Wave Propagation Lab at ETH Zurich. The simulated geological structures are constructed from 2mm thick metal and plastic sheets, cut and bonded together. The experiments entail the use of a piezoelectric source driven by a pulse amplifier at ultrasonic frequencies to generate Lamb waves in the plate, which are detected by piezoelectric receivers and recorded digitally on a National Instruments recording system, under LabVIEW software control.The 2D models employed were constructed in-house in full recognition of the similitude relations. The first heterogeneous model features a flat uniform low velocity near-surface layer and deeper dipping and flat interfaces separating different materials. The second model is comparable but also incorporates two rectangular shaped inserts, one of low velocity, the other of high velocity. The third model is identical to the second other than it has an irregular low velocity surface layer of variable thickness. Reflection as well as transmission experiments (crosshole & vertical seismic profiling) were performed on each model. The two dominant Lamb waves recorded are the fundamental symmetric mode (non-dispersive) and the fundamental antisymmetric (flexural) dispersive mode, the latter normally being absent when the source transducer is located on a model edge but dominant when it is on the flat planar surface of the plate.Experimental group and phase velocity dispersion curves were determined and plotted for both modes in a uniform aluminium plate. For the reflection seismic data, various processing techniques were applied, as far as pre-stack Kirchhoff migration. The irregular surface layer and the anomalous velocity block inserts can destroy the coherence of the reflections. Migration was able to resolve the two main buried interfaces when the surface layer was flat but for the variable irregular surface layer the imaging result is inferior. First-arrival tomography was applied to the crosshole seismic data set and yielded the correct velocity distributions.Numerical modelling was also carried out to replicate the laboratory data and to identify the arrivals. The numerical seismograms are of superior quality to the physical model data and yield improved images of the structures.