3-Dimensional Imaging of Shear Wave Velocity in the Soil Site using HWAW Method

HWAW방법을 이용한 지반의 전단파 속도 3-D 영상화

The evaluation of shear modulus (or shear wave velocity) profile of the site is very important in various fields of geotechnical engineering. In the field, there exist spatial variations of shear modulus that case uncertainty in the geotechnical analysis or design. So it is necessary to evaluate the spatial variation of shear wave velocities of the soil site. In this study, the HWAW method is applied to the determination of a 3-D Vs map of soil site. The HWAW method, which is based on harmonic wavelet transforms, has been developed to determine phase and group velocities of waves. The HWAW method uses only the signal portion of the maximum local signal/noise ratio to evaluate the phase velocity in order to minimize the effect of the noise. The field testing of this method is relatively simple and fast because only one experimental setup, which consists of one pair of receivers on the surface, is needed using a short receiver spacing setup (1~3m). These characteristics make it possible to determine detailed local Vs profile in the site with lateral Vs variation and to evaluate 3-D Vs map by performing a series of tests on the grid. To estimate the applicability of the proposed method, field tests were performed. Through field applications validity and applicability of the proposed method were verified.