Zihao Chen
Pronouns: he/him/his
Research Mentor(s): Zack Spica
Co-Presenter:
Research Mentor School/College/Department: Earth & Environmental Sciences / LSA
Presentation Date: April 20
Presentation Type: Poster
Session: Session 6 – 4:40pm – 5:30 pm
Room: League Ballroom
Authors: Zihao Chen, Zack Spica
Presenter: 100
Abstract
The seismic data to monitor potential earthquakes have always been crucial in high populated urban areas. However, the installation of seismometers in these areas are not always feasible due to: (1) the money/time available for field campaign and (2) the complex physical, geographical, and legal logistics inherent to urban settings. As an alternative to traditional instrumentation, this research uses Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) along with optics fibers that are vastly buried under cities to measure ground motion. DAS utilizes laser scattering effects occuring everywhere along the fiber to inform about dynamic strain along a cable. Using this technology, we can transform the optical cable into array of thousands of seismo-acoustic sensors, and use the it to analyze the seismic activities around an area without the need of traditional seismometers. This research specifically focuses on a DAS dataset collected in Barcelona, Spain. By analyzing the DAS data, we verify the feasibility of DAS in urban seismic analysis and investigate the valid method of using it. Currently, we are able to use the DAS data to monitor the large-scale city activities in Barcelona, including large number of car movement, crowd movement during large events, potential earthquakes, etc. Even though more data are needed to examine the feasibility of DAS in various areas and scenarios other than urban areas, our study suggests that DAS has a strong potential for urban seismic monitoring.
Environmental Studies
