[CIG-SHORT] Fault opening and penetration

[Brad Aagaard]

On 3/23/15 8:34 AM, GeLi wrote:
> Hi，
>
> I have some questions about fault opening/penetration and following
> traction evolution.
>
>
> 1.
>
> When ‘free-open surface=False’, it says in pylith manual that prescribed
> trations will applied even when fault opens.
>
> As I check the the result of step20(dike intrusiont examples), however,
> I find the traction is zero even when fault opens. Why?

This is an artifact in the output. There isn't an easy fix for this, and 
since this was a rare case I haven't spent much time looking for a 
better solution.

> 2. What about traction penetration? How does pylith deal with traction
> when vertex normal slip is negative? I find traction decrease to zero
> drastically after fault penetrates in my simulations.
>
>   I checked the code in libsrc/pylith/faults/FaultCohesiveDyn.cc. It
> seems that both fault penetration and '_openFreeSurface = False’
>
> cases yield the same results.

Interpenetration is never allowed, slip slipNormal < _zeroTolerance.

Regards,
Brad