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THE SEISMOMETERS

The seismometers can be thought of as having a mass M attached to a point of the earth's surface through a parallel arrangement of a spring and a dashpot. Denote the ground motion by u(t) and the motion of the mass relative to the earth as tex2html_wrap_inline909 . The spring will exert a force proportional to its elongation tex2html_wrap_inline911 and the dashpot will exert a force proportional to the velocity tex2html_wrap_inline913 between the mass and the earth. Denoting the constants of proportionality by k and D respectively, the equation of motion for the mass is (Aki and Richards 1980):

  equation215

Rewriting the displacement tex2html_wrap_inline911 relative to the equilibrium position of the spring tex2html_wrap_inline921 as tex2html_wrap_inline909 , this can be written:

  equation218

where tex2html_wrap_inline925 and tex2html_wrap_inline927 . tex2html_wrap_inline929 then describes the damping of the geophone and tex2html_wrap_inline931 the eigen frequency. Laplace transforming both sides of equation 20 and rearranging gives the frequency response tex2html_wrap_inline933 of the seismometer as:

  eqnarray223

In general the geophone will also have some frequency independent gain, tex2html_wrap_inline935 . The frequency response of the geophone will then be:

  equation232

For the Lennartz geophones tex2html_wrap_inline937 V/m/s (Lennartz 1990). The poles of tex2html_wrap_inline933 are given by:

  equation240

  figure245

Defining the damping constant h as tex2html_wrap_inline943 , a critically damped geophone will have h = 1.0. For an underdamped geophone tex2html_wrap_inline947 and for an overdamped geophone tex2html_wrap_inline949 (Aki and Richards 1980). Equation 23 can then be rewritten as:

  equation254

For a 1 Hz geophone, damped at tex2html_wrap_inline951 critical damping (i.e. h=0.707), tex2html_wrap_inline955 , where T is the period, the poles are (from equation 24):

  equation261

For a seismometer with a 5 sec eigen period and a damping constant of 0.707 (i.e. the LE-3D/5s geophone), equation 24 gives:

  equation267

The above description is valid for the classical mechanical devices widely used and also for the Lennartz seismometers which simulate these devices. For other active seismometers, such as instruments with displacement transducers, the equations are slightly different but have the same general form. The poles and zeros of all seismometer types currently in use in the SIL network are given in Appendix A. For all seismometers other than the Lennartz instruments the specifications are taken from manuals shipped with the instruments. The frequency response of the six geophones is shown in Figure 2.

In the first three years of operation of the SIL network (1989-1991), the poles used for the Lennartz LE-3D 1 Hz geophones ( tex2html_wrap_inline961 ) where obtained from specifications of S13 seismometers with a damping constant of 0.61. This frequency response differs slightly from the actual Lennartz response for frequencies around 1 Hz (see Figure 3).

  figure273


next up previous contents
Next: THE DIGITIZER AND SEISMOMETERS Up: The transfer function of Previous: THE RD3/OSD3 DIGITIZER

Sigurdur Th. Rognvaldsson
Wed Mar 19 12:54:50 GMT 1997