Dislocation parameters of Gonghe earthquake jointly inferred by using genetic algorithms and least squares method

The Second Crustal Deformation Monitoring Center, China Seismological Bureau, has detected a marked uplift associated with the Gonghe Ms=7.0 earthquake on April 26, 1990, Qinghai Province. From the observed vertical deformations and using a rectangular uniform slip model in a homogeneous elastic half space, we first employ genetic algorithms (GA) to infer the approximate global optimal solution, and further use least squares method to get more accurate global optimal solution by taking the approximate solution of GA as the initial parameters of least squares. The inversion results show that the causative fault of Gonghe Ms=7.0 earthquake is a right-lateral reverse fault with strike NW60°, dip SW and dip angle 37°, the coseismic fracture length, width and slip are 37 km, 6 km and 2.7 m respectively. Combination of GA and least squares algorithms is an effective joint inversion method, which could not only escape from local optimum of least squares, but also solve the slow convergence problem of GA after reaching adjacency of global optimal solution.

Mechanical properties of irradiated multi-phase polycrystalline BCC materials

Structure materials under severe irradiations in nuclear environments are known to degrade because of irradiation hardening and loss of ductility,resulting from irradiation-induced defects such as vacancies,interstitials and dislocation loops,etc.In this paper,we develop an elastic-viscoplastic model for irradiated multi-phase polycrystalline BCC materials in which the mechanical behaviors of individual grains and polycrystalline aggregates are both explored.At the microscopic grain scale,we use the internal variable model and propose a new tensorial damage descriptor to represent the geometry character of the defect loop,which facilitates the analysis of the defect loop evolutions and dislocation-defect interactions.At the macroscopic polycrystal scale,the self-consistent scheme is extended to consider the multiphase problem and used to bridge the individual grain behavior to polycrystal properties.Based on the proposed model,we found that the work-hardening coefficient decreases with the increase of irradiation-induced defect loops,and the orientation/loading dependence of mechanical properties is mainly attributed to the different Schmid factors.At the polycrystalline scale,numerical results for pure Fe match well with the irradiation experiment data.The model is further extended to predict the hardening effect of dispersoids in oxide-dispersed strengthened steels by the considering the Orowan bowing.The influences of grain size and irradiation are found to compete to dominate the strengthening behaviors of materials.

Gravity changes and surface deformations due to faults with different geometry

Based on the formulae of the gravity changes and surface deformations raised by the dislocation of a point source,the gravity changes and deformations caused by the dislocations of fault with arbitrary geometry are computed by using numerical method. The results show that both of the dislocation and the geometry of the fault plane are the basic elements that determine the gravity and deformation effects. Gravity changes, vertical deformations and apparent vertical deformations induced by the dislocation are alike in their characteristic patterns. The similarities and differences of these patterns provide us a probability in acquiring the gravity and deformation anomalies due to faulting from the observed data. Thus the geometric and kinematic features of the earthquake-generating faults can be appropriately distinguished and evaluated.