Kenneth Desmond
Krauklis Waves in Synthetic Fracturs
Over the past decades, volcanic seismology has shown that subsurface fractures act as acoustic resonators: seismic tremors arising from natural or induced excitation contain rich information about the fracture geometry. These resonances are governed by Krauklis (tube) waves propagating within the fluid-filled aperture. In collaboration with C. Armando Duarte developed an experimental technique and numerical solver to generate and monitor the propagation of Krauklis waves in synthetic fractures.
Summary of our work:
- Derived a closed-form theory for Krauklis-wave speed and attenuation in an idealized planar fracture.
- Implemented this formulation in a numerical simulator that predicts the frequency response of fractures without empirical fitting.
- Experimentally validated the model at seismic frequencies on finite-extent fractures, demonstrating near-perfect agreement with no free parameters.
- Extended the theory to account for finite-size effects, showing that the original scaling laws for infinite fractures hold with minor corrections.
These results provide the first direct experimental confirmation of decades-old Krauklis-wave theory and establish a robust framework for non-invasive fracture characterization in both volcanic and petroleum contexts.
