Effect of frictional heating and thermal advection on pre-seismic sliding: a numerical simulation using a rate-, state- and temperature-dependent friction law

Abstract

a b s t r a c tLaboratory experiments on simulated faults in rocks clearly show the temperature dependence of dynamic rock friction. Since rocks surrounding faults are permeable, we have developed a numerical method to describe the thermo-mechanical evolution of the pre-seismic sliding phase which takes into account both the rate-, state-and temperature-dependent friction law and the heat advection term in the energy equation. We consider a laminar fluid motion perpendicular to a vertical fault plane and assume that fluids move away from the fault plane. A semi-analytical temperature solution which accounts for the variability of slip velocity and stress on the fault has been found. This solution has been generalized to the case of a time varying fluid velocity and then was used to include the thermal pressurization effect. After discretizing the temperature solution, the evolution of the system is obtained by the solution of a system of first order differential equations which allows us to determine the evolution of slip, slip rate, friction coefficient, effective normal stress, temperature and fluid velocity. The numerical solutions are found using a Runge-Kutta method with an adaptative stepsize control in time. When the thermal pressurization effects can be neglected, the heat advection effect gives rise to a delay, with respect to the purely conductive case, of the earthquake occurrence time. This delay increases with increasing permeability H of the system. When the thermal pressurization effects are taken into account the situation is opposite, i.e. the onset of instability tends to precede that of the purely conductive case. The advance in the time of occurrence of instability increases with increasing coefficient of thermal pressurization. In the small permeability range (H ≤ 10 −18 m 2 ), the seismic moment and nucleation length of the pre-seismic phase are significantly smaller than those predicted by the purely conductive model.

Importance of thermochemical pressurization in the dynamic weakening of the Longmenshan Fault during the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake: Inferences from experiments and modeling

“…[3] Theoretical studies have focused on thermal pressurization (TP) as an important slip-weakening mechanism, at both the coseismic slip [Lachenbruch, 1980;Mase and Smith, 1985;Rice, 2006] and rupture nucleation [Segall and Rice, 2006;de Lorenzo and Lpddo, 2010] of an earthquake. Other high-velocity slip-weakening mechanisms include silica gel lubrication [Di Toro et al, 2004], bulk melting [Tsutsumi and Shimamoto, 1997;Hirose and Shimamoto, 2005], flash heating [Rice, 1999], and nanoparticle lubrication [Han et al, 2010;Reches and Lockner, 2010].…”

Temperatures and fluids on faults based on carbonate clumped-isotope thermometry

“…Motion on large, upper crustal fault zones is governed in large part by the evolution of temperature and pore fluid pressure within cataclasites (for example Rice, 1992Rice, , 2006Blanpied and others, 1998;de Lorenzo and Loddo, 2010;De Paola and others, 2011;Goren and others, 2010). However, observations that constrain the temperature of cataclastic deformation in natural faults, and the origin and evolution of syntectonic pore fluids, are relatively limited.…”

Green tribology: Fundamentals and future development

“…These coatings show sustained friction coefficient values as low as 0.02 in water-glycol-based lubricants, and offer a unique combination of excellent wear resistance and low friction when combined with the high hardness of the mixed-phase composite (30)(31)(32)(33)(34)(35).…”

“…It was found that the cumulative distribution function of the recurrence intervals of simulated earthquakes at each segment approximately obeys a Brownian passage time distribution or a lognormal distribution. Later on, using a rate-, state-, and temperaturedependent friction law, a numerical method was developed to investigate the effects of frictional heating and thermal advection on pre-seismic sliding [34].…”