Seismic Wave Power Estimation for Early Warning
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional earthquake early warning systems can only estimate seismic intensities and not the power of seismic waves, leading to inadequate warnings for high-power seismic waves like S waves that can cause significant damage to structures and equipment, even if they result in low seismic intensities at a site.
Innovation Solution
A high-power seismic wave early warning method and system that estimates the maximum power value of late-arriving seismic waves, such as S waves, using seismic wave, source, and site parameters, and issues timely warnings to enable protective measures before the waves arrive, incorporating a power estimation module and communication interface to transmit alerts to warning devices.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If conventional earthquake early warning systems estimate only seismic intensities, then the system complexity is reduced, but the ability to detect high-power seismic waves is insufficient
Solution Approach 1:
The patent changes the estimation parameter from seismic intensity to seismic wave power by introducing the power spectral density function and frequency-domain analysis. This allows the system to detect high-power seismic waves like S waves that cause structural damage, even when traditional intensity methods fail to capture their threat level.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent transitions from time-domain seismic wave analysis to frequency-domain analysis by computing power spectral density functions. This dimensional transformation enables the system to identify high-power seismic waves through their frequency characteristics, providing an additional dimension for detection that complements traditional intensity-based methods.
2Reliability
If early warnings are issued only for high seismic intensity waves, then false alarms are reduced, but high-power late-arriving seismic waves are not detected
Solution Approach 1:
The patent changes the warning criterion from seismic intensity threshold to seismic wave power threshold. By using power spectral density and integrating power across frequency bands, the system can detect high-power late-arriving S waves that would cause structural damage even when their intensity at the measurement site is not extreme, thereby reducing harmful effects from undetected waves.
3Loss of time
If the system estimates power of late-arriving seismic waves, then protective operations can be performed in advance, but the estimation requires multiple parameter sets increasing system complexity
Solution Approach 1:
The patent performs preliminary computation of power spectral density functions and estimation of maximum power values for late-arriving seismic waves using data from the first arriving P waves. This preliminary action allows the system to issue warnings before the high-power S waves arrive, providing crucial lead time for protective operations while using computationally efficient spectral analysis methods.
Data Source
AI summary
A high-power seismic wave early warning method is provided to use an earliest-arriving seismic wave to estimate a maximum power value of a later-arriving high-power seismic wave for a target site. When the estimated maximum power value of the later-arriving high-power seismic wave is greater than a warning value, an earthquake early warning is transmitted to an earthquake early warning device that is located at the target site.