Saba Robinary was awarded the 2nd prize for best poster at the PhotoMechanics – iDICs international conference, held in Clermont-Ferrant from 29 to 31 October 2024.
The title of the winning poster is “Characterization of the effect of roughness on dynamic shear ruptures along frictional interfaces”.
Saba is currently preparing her thesis at the GeM within the TRU DYNAST under the supervision of Ioannis Stefanou and the co-direction of Vito Rubino, as part of the project NeXT UNDERFRIC.
Her thesis topic is relevant to a wide range of applications among which the study of earthquakes. An earthquake occurs via a dynamic rupture instability which propagates along pre-existing faults in the Earth’s crust. This thesis focus on the propagation of the rupture front which is the boundary between the locked and slipping parts of the fault.
Through her research, Saba is interested in the influence of the fault’s roughness on the propagation of this rupture front. Indeed, faults are often considered like planar discontinuities in a rock mass despite showing deviation from planarity at all scales and being almost of a fractal nature. Fault slip and rupture are governed by the local stress field and frictional behavior of the fault which are affected by the presence of asperities.
Numerical studies have shown that rough faults are less likely to nucleate earthquakes and have a tendency to arrest already propagating ruptures. However, a rupture nucleating on a rough fault has higher chances to transition to intersonic propagation velocities. These earthquakes are less likely to happen but are more dangerous and can cause more damage.
The goal ofthis work is to better understand the links between fault roughness and the propagation velocity of the rupture front through an experimental study.