Non-steady-state slip rates emerge along evolving restraining bends under constant loading

Tectonics of strike-slip restraining and releasing bends

One of the remarkable tectonic features of the Earth’s crust is the widespread presence of long, approximately straight and geomorphically prominent strike-slip faults which are a kinematic consequence of large-scale motion of plates on a sphere (Wilson 1965). Strike-slip faults form in continental and oceanic transform plate boundaries; in intraplate settings as a continental interior response...

Universal Nucleation Length for Slip-Weakening Rupture Instability under Non-Uniform Fault Loading

We consider the nucleation of instability on a slip-weakening fault subjected to a heterogeneous, locally peaked “loading” stress. That stress is assumed to gradually increase due to tectonic loading but to retain its peaked character. The case of a linear stress versus slip law is considered in the framework of two-dimensional quasi-static elasticity for a planar fault. Slip initiates when the...

Slip statistics of dislocation avalanches under different loading modes.

Slowly compressed microcrystals deform via intermittent slip events, observed as displacement jumps or stress drops. Experiments often use one of two loading modes: an increasing applied stress (stress driven, soft), or a constant strain rate (strain driven, hard). In this work we experimentally test the influence of the deformation loading conditions on the scaling behavior of slip events. It ...

Toward an MRI-based method to measure non-uniform cartilage deformation: an MRI-cyclic loading apparatus system and steady-state cyclic displacement of articular cartilage under compressive loading.

Recent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) techniques have shown potential for measuring non-uniform deformations throughout the volume (i.e. three-dimensional (3D) deformations) in small orthopedic tissues such as articular cartilage. However, to analyze cartilage deformation using MRI techniques, a system is required which can construct images from multiple acquisitions of MRI signals from the c...

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