for Seismic Risks Assessment and Mitigation
AI-empowered algorithms through Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS)
for Seismic Risks Assessment and Mitigation
| Category | Sustainability and Environment |
| Keywords | Earthquakes, Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS), Seismic Hazard Mitigation, Earthquake Early Warning (EEW), Environmental Monitoring |
Application
Real-time environmental sensing of every point along optical fibers, installed both on land and off shore, is crucial for safety and smart monitoring of critical infrastructures (such as pipelines, roads, railways, and other linear foundation assets) as well as seismic hazard mitigation and earthquake resilience. Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) is a novel sensing technique, transforming standard telecommunication cables into dense arrays of seismo-acoustic sensors. DAS allows for spatially and temporally continuous recording of transient ground deformations, caused by earthquakes or human made activities.
Our Innovation
Dr. Lior is harnessing DAS over fiber optic infrastructures in order to map the seismic hazard in extremely high resolution and develop algorithms for the real-time analysis of earthquakes and Earthquake Early Warning (EEW) issuance. These methods will identify and analyze earthquakes and issue alerts in real-time.
Dr. Lior is combining theory and observations to gain new insights into the effects of the different earthquake source properties (such as magnitude, stress drop, directivity) on the resulting ground motions and the potential seismic hazard, to conduct robust real-time analysis of earthquakes. The researcher is working in collaboration with the largest Israeli companies operating optical fiber cables for gas and water pipe monitoring.
In his recent project (Publication 1), the group demonstrated the potential of DAS for EEW by quantifying the damage potential of underwater earthquakes before the seismic waves reached the shoreline, (i.e., before anyone on land knew the earthquake occurred). The group is equipped with the state-of-the-art optical interrogator unit, manufactured by Prisma Photonics for conducting DAS measurements.
Publication 1 , Publication 2
Opportunity
DAS is revolutionizing seismic monitoring and earthquake hazard mitigation, enabling extremely high-resolution observations in inaccessible places such as underwater, where most of the largest earthquakes on earth occur. As optical fibers are becoming more and more ubiquitous around the world, and even installed by industrial companies to increase revenue, the use of existing optical fiber infrastructures makes this monitoring approach cheaper than common alternatives. The group is interested in expanding their industrial partnerships, helping companies learn about seismic risks in their domain, identifying faults and weak points of existing systems, and developing EEW systems, while at the same time addressing fundamental scientific questions in earthquake physics. These capabilities are a real game changer for countries that are faced with offshore earthquake hazards (e.g., Chile, Peru, Japan, Alaska, Indonesia, Philippines etc.) to prepare for future earthquakes.
