SCEC Award Number 17075 View PDF
Proposal Category Collaborative Proposal (Integration and Theory)
Proposal Title A Collaborative Project: Rupture Dynamics, Validation of the Numerical Simulation Method
Investigator(s)
Name Organization
Ruth Harris United States Geological Survey Jean-Paul Ampuero California Institute of Technology Michael Barall Invisible Software, Inc. Eric Daub University of Memphis Benchun Duan Texas A&M University Shuo Ma San Diego State University Daniel Roten San Diego State University Brad Aagaard United States Geological Survey Ralph Archuleta University of California, Santa Barbara Luis Dalguer swissnuclear (Switzerland) Eric Dunham Stanford University Ahmed Elbanna University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Brittany Erickson Portland State University Alice-Agnes Gabriel Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (Germany) Junle Jiang University of California, San Diego Yoshihiro Kaneko GNS Science (New Zealand) Yuko Kase National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (Japan) Jeremy Kozdon United States Navy Nadia Lapusta California Institute of Technology Jack Norbeck Stanford University David Oglesby University of California, Riverside Kim Olsen San Diego State University Arben Pitarka Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Zhenguo Zhang University of Science and Technology of China (China)
Other Participants at least 10 postdocs and students, in addition to the co-PI's already listed on the proposal
SCEC Priorities 4a, 4b, 2d SCEC Groups GM, FARM, CME
Report Due Date 06/15/2018 Date Report Submitted 05/17/2018
Project Abstract
 This multi-co-PI collaborative project (17075) included SCEC investigators (senior PIs, postdocs, and students) from at least six countries. Over the past decade the SCEC-USGS dynamic rupture code verification group constructed and performed more than 37 benchmark exercises, then demonstrated that more than 12 spontaneous rupture codes could reproduce each other’s results, using earthquake rupture simulations that incorporated a range of assumptions for the fault geometry, from simple planar to multi-fault rupture and rough faults, the velocity structure, from homogeneous to 1D to 3D along with elastic versus plastic or viscoplastic rock response, a range of initial stress conditions that ranged from homogeneous to stochastic heterogeneous, and multiple formulations for fault friction. The group also implemented a benchmark exercise using a model of the M6.0 Parkfield 2004 earth-quake, and compared the simulated synthetic seismograms with recorded seismograms. In 2017-early 2018, the goal was to investigate potential methods for dynamic rupture code validation. Whereas code verification was achieved (see Harris et al., SRL, 2018), code validation is different and difficult. Code validation questions include which information is to be validated, and which activities are sufficient to be declared successful. Possible approaches to code validation include using a test set of observations from multiple earthquakes and examining how well codes can match overall features of these observations. A successful validation would imply that the code(s) can be used as tools for forecasting the range of behavior by earthquakes that have not yet happened, a goal of many earthquake physics and ground motions studies.
Intellectual Merit This project helps us understand what our community’s computational capabilities are for simulating dynamic earthquake rupture and the resulting strong ground motions, using a physics-based perspective. Our project has helped advance the science of dynamic earthquake rupture simulation while also testing the codes used to perform these types of simulations.
Broader Impacts This project helps us understand what our community’s computational capabilities are for simulating dynamic earthquake rupture and the resulting strong ground motions, using a physics-based perspective. These types of simulations help us understand how earthquakes in the past have worked, and they might be able to tell us how earthquakes and strong ground shaking in the future might work. Students and postdocs are heavily involved in our project. We are the training and testing ground for current and future experts in this field.
Exemplary Figure Figure 1 is my classic figure about how the project works.