Rotaphone-CY: The Newest Rotaphone Model Design and Preliminary Results from Performance Tests with Active Seismic Sources

0543391 - ÚSMH 2022 RIV CH eng J - Journal Article
Brokešová, J. - Málek, Jiří - Vackář, Jiří - Bernauer, F. - Wassermann, J. - Igel, H.
Rotaphone-CY: The Newest Rotaphone Model Design and Preliminary Results from Performance Tests with Active Seismic Sources.
Sensors. Roč. 21, č. 2 (2021), č. článku 562. E-ISSN 1424-8220
R&D Projects: GA MŠMT(CZ) LTAUSA19083
Institutional support: RVO:67985891
Keywords : seismic rotation * rotational seismometer * Rotaphone * seismic array * rotation-to-translation relations * field experiment
OECD category: Environmental and geological engineering, geotechnics
Impact factor: 3.847, year: 2021
Method of publishing: Open access
https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/21/2/562

Rotaphone-CY is a six-component short-period seismograph that is capable of the co-located recording of three translational (ground velocity) components along three orthogonal axes and three rotational (rotation rate) components around the three axes in one device. It is a mechanical sensor system utilizing records from elemental sensors (geophones) arranged in parallel pairs to derive differential motions in the pairs. The pairs are attached to a rigid frame that is anchored to the ground. The model design, the latest one among various Rotaphone designs based on the same principle and presented elsewhere, is briefly introduced. The upgrades of the new model are a 32-bit A/D converter, a more precise placing of the geophones to parallel pairs and a better housing, which protects the instrument from external electromagnetic noise. The instrument is still in a developmental stage. It was tested in a field experiment that took place at the Geophysical Observatory in Furstenfeldbruck (Germany) in November 2019. Four Rotaphones-CY underwent the huddle-testing phase of the experiment as well as the field-deployment phase, in which the instruments were installed in a small-aperture seismic array of a triangular shape. The preliminary results from this active-source experiment are shown. Rotaphone-CY data are verified, in part, by various approaches: mutual comparison of records from four independent Rotaphone-CY instruments, waveform matching according to rotation-to-translation relations, and comparison to array-derived rotations when applicable. The preliminary results are very promising and they suggest the good functionality of the Rotaphone-CY design. It has been proved that the present Rotaphone-CY model is a reliable instrument for measuring short-period seismic rotations of the amplitudes as small as 10-7 rad/s.
Permanent Link: http://hdl.handle.net/11104/0320606