[CIG-SHORT] Slip-weakening friction model for cohesion?

[Ekaterina Bolotskaya]

Dear Pylith developers,

I'm currently running a 2D simulation which is a 2m (height) by 3m (width) elastic block.
The block is initially compressed both vertically (2MPa) and horizontally (2MPa) and then sheared with a rate of 0.045 MPa/year for 100 years. Vertical displacement is fixed for all the boundaries: both horizontal and vertical.

The block has a horizontal fault in the middle which goes almost all the way to the edges of the block (2.98m - fault length).
I want to have an ~1m long section with a smaller friction coefficient (0.6) in the middle of the fault which would slip first and I want the slip to then propagate to the two side regions that initially had higher friction coefficient (0.8) but that should have same 0.6 coefficient once the slip started happening. I'm implementing this using the slip-weakening friction database.

I'm now interested in implementing a similar thing with cohesion. I want it to have zero value for the middle section of the fault and some finite value for the two locked (side) sections and then change to zero (for the side sections) in a linear or stepwise fashion as the slip becomes larger than some threshold value (similar to what the coefficient of friction does in slip-weakening model). Is there a way to implement it with Pylith?

Thanks!

Best regards,
Ekaterina Bolotskaya

PhD in Geophysics,
Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Science Department,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
E-mail. bolee at mit.edu<mailto:bolee at mit.edu>
Mob. +1 (857) 284-2805<tel:+1%20(857)%20284-2805>
         +7 (963) 995-36-33<tel:+7%20(963)%20995-36-33>

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