HR: 15:10h
AN: S13D-07    [Abstracts]
TI: Dynamic Interface Rupture in Extremely Heterogeneous Media
AU: * Uenishi, K
EM: uenishi@kobe-u.ac.jp
AF: Research Center for Urban Safety and Security, Kobe University, 1-1 Rokko-dai, Nada, Kobe, 657-8501, Japan
AU: Tsuji, K
EM: 064t133n@stu.kobe-u.ac.jp
AF: Graduate School of Science and Technology, Kobe University, 1-1 Rokko-dai, Nada, Kobe, 657-8501, Japan
AB: Fracture experiments of monolithic brittle materials usually show the maximum speed of smooth rupture at some 30 % of the relevant shear wave speed. This experimental maximum rupture speed is by far lower than those predicted by theories and inferred from inversions of seismograms, and some seismic inversions (e.g., the 1979 Imperial Valley, 1992 Landers, 1999 Izmit, 2001 the central Kunlunshan and 2002 Denali earthquakes) even suggest the existence of supershear rupture speeds (i.e., rupture propagating faster than the relevant shear wave). Recently, Uenishi et al. ( SSJ Fall Meeting, 2004, 2005; AGU Fall Meeting, 2006) experimentally investigated dynamic fracture in monolithic hyperelastic materials under static mode-ƒ§ loading conditions with relatively high crack-parallel stresses. Using a high-speed digital video camera system, they showed that cracks may propagate supersonically even in homogeneous materials. However, the exact mechanism for rupture nucleation and the transition of a nucleated rupture from sub-Rayleigh to super-shear rupture speed has not been identified yet. In this contribution, we further develop our experimental system and investigate dynamic fracture in extremely heterogeneous media, consisting of thin fluid and solid films: Inside a wire frame (50mm high, 50mm wide), a flat soap film contacts a flat thin solid plastic film (20mm high, 20mm wide), under static tensile loading conditions. The rupture (crack), initiated at a point, propagates subsonically in the linear elastic fluid film (see e.g., Uenishi et al., SSJ Fall Meeting, 2006, for the dynamic rupture in monolithic fluid films). When the circular rupture front reaches the interface, the rupture advances along the interface and then it is "diffracted" at the two corners of the interface. We record the rupture propagation process utilizing our high-speed digital video camera at a frame rate of 20 μs (20×10^-6s). The observed results show that interface rupture propagation may accelerate (or even decelerate) and the dynamic rupture behavior is very sensitive to the geometry of the interface between the two films: (1) When the subsonic rupture front reaches the first rectangular corner, it accelerates around the corner and then advances supersonically along the interface; and (2) when the supersonic interface rupture front approaches the second corner (obtuse with respect to the rupture front in fluid), it bifurcates for a short period (400 μs): the first branch unexpectedly expands rather straight into the bulk and the second one propagates along the interface at a lower speed; At a later stage, again unexpectedly, the first branched crack decelerates significantly in the bulk and the two cracks eventually merge into a single crack. The overall behavior is - in some sense - similar to that of the oblique shock and Prandtl- Meyer expansion waves in fluid mechanics, and it might give new insights not only into the question of high rupture speeds of natural earthquakes but also into the generation mechanism of tsunamis.
UR: http://www2.kobe- u.ac.jp/~uenishi/
DE: 7209 Earthquake dynamics (1242)
DE: 7215 Earthquake source observations (1240)
DE: 7260 Theory
DE: 8118 Dynamics and mechanics of faulting (8004)
SC: Seismology [S]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting