Comparison of Signal Powers Generated with Different Shapes of Hammer Plates

One of the main problems concerning the shallow seismic survey is how to generate high frequency signals with large amplitudes using small seismic sources. If one could focus the seismic energy in the direction of the survey line, it will be much helpful in identifying the first break. In this research, we have used hammer as an impulsive source and compared the signal powers generated by different shapes of the hammer plates: circular, square, and rectangular. The experiment was conducted by calculating the power spectral density function to compare the frequency spectrum and signal power. In the direction perpendicular to the long side of the rectangular plate, the largest seismic energy with the highest frequency was achieved even with the same weights of hammer plates. Our conclusion is that it is more efficient to use a rectangular plate than a circular (or square) one when conducting a 2-D shallow seismic survey.