Analysis of seismic waves excited in near-surface soils by means of the electromagnetic pulse source "Yenisei"

The northern territories of Eastern Siberia are characterized by a permafrost-taiga structure of the surface layer of soil, which reduces the efficiency of geological exploration using seismic sources of explosive and vibratory types. Therefore, Geotech Holding Company developed a special eco-friendly electromagnetic pulse source "Yenisei", which seismic waves are the subject of analysis using high-performance computing in this paper. Computational technology, worked out previously for solving the problems of the dynamics of viscoelastic, elastic-plastic, granular and porous media, is applied to the analysis of wave motion of a soil near a point of perturbations. It is shown that the main frequency of generated strain waves substantially depends on the elastic characteristics of a soil in the near-surface zone. A comparison of the results of computations obtained in the framework of the model of static loading with instant unloading and the model taking into account the monotone loading stage with subsequent pressure relief showed the validity of the hypothesis about the presence of added mass of a soil under the loading platform. This mass accumulates impact energy and emits seismic waves due to oscillatory motion.