Novel techniques for in situ estimation of shear-wave velocity and damping ratio through MASW testing – I: a beamforming procedure for extracting Rayleigh-wave phase velocity and phase attenuation

A robust, in situ estimate of shear-wave velocity VS and the small-strain damping ratio DS (or equivalently, the quality factor QS) is crucial for the design of buildings and geotechnical systems subjected to vibrations or earthquake ground shaking. A promising technique for simultaneously obtaining both VS and DS relies on the Multichannel Analysis of Surface Waves (MASW) method. MASW can be used to extract the Rayleigh wave phase velocity and phase attenuation data from active-source seismic traces recorded along linear arrays. Then, these data can be inverted to obtain VS and DS profiles. This paper introduces two novel methodologies for extracting the phase velocity and attenuation data. These new approaches are based on an extension of the beamforming technique which can be combined with a modal filter to isolate different Rayleigh propagation modes. Thus, the techniques return reliable phase velocity and attenuation estimates even in the presence of a multimode wavefield, which is typical of complex stratigraphic conditions. The reliability and effectiveness of the proposed approaches are assessed on a suite of synthetic wavefields and on experimental data collected at the Garner Valley Downhole Array and Mirandola sites. The resultsreveal that, under proper modelling of wavefield conditions, accurate estimates of Rayleigh wave phase velocity and attenuation can be extracted from active-source MASW wavefields over a broad frequency range. Eventually, the estimation ofsoil mechanical parameters also requires a robust inversion procedure to map the experimental Rayleigh wave parameters into soil models describing VS and DS with depth. The simultaneous inversion of phase velocity and attenuation data is discussed in detail in the companion paper.