[CIG-SHORT] Frictional behavior and imposed episodic slip on a fault

[Romain Jolivet]

Hello Pylith users and developers,

Is there a zero slip condition at the tip of a fault (FaultCohesiveKin object) and if yes, is there a way to remove this constraint?

I explain my problem a little bit more. Here is a little drawing:
#-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------#
|                                                                                                                                   |
|                                                                 Medium 1                                                |
|                                                                                                                                   |
|                                                                                                                                   |
|                Fault 1                                                   Fault 2                                       |
#--------------------------------#----------------------------------------------------------------#
|         imposed slip                                        FaultCohesiveDyn                          |
| (1 earthquake/100 yrs)                                                                                          |
|                                                                                                                                    |
|                                                                  Medium 2                                                |
|                                                                                                                                    |
#-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------#

I would like to impose slip, episodically, on fault 1 and observe the behavior of fault 2, that has a frictional rheology. I apply dirichlet boundary conditions on the edges of medium 1 (towards the left) and medium 2 (towards the right), so that frictional creep occurs along Fault 2 between slip episodes.

The problem right now is that the element at the junction between the two faults (the one that belongs to fault 2) does not slip. Consequently, creep does not propagate correctly in fault 2 after each event. Then there is a huge stress accumulation at the junction between the two faults (the problem might diverge at some point). One solution would be to have one fault (FaultCohesiveDyn) and to impose slip on part of its elements. Is it possible to impose episodes of slip on elements of a FaultCohesiveDyn object?

I would like to know if this is possible to do with the latest PyLith version, if I need to implement my own fault module (Would it be easy/complicated/hard/a nightmare/impossible?) or if I should change the design of my problem?

Thanks,
Romain

Romain Jolivet
Postdoctoral Scholar
Geological and Planetary Sciences
California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 
rjolivet at caltech.edu
+1 (626) 560 6356

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