Data accompanying the paper entitled "Rapid normal stress oscillations cause dilatation and weakening in gouge-bearing faults"

In some scenarios, faults in the crust are withstanding rapid stress changes of different magnitudes, such as those from nearby or remote earthquakes, seasonal impoundment and discharge of reservoirs, and hydrocarbon and geothermal energy production. The impact of such stress changes on the earthquake potential of a fault is poorly understood. Researchers from the Utrecht University and the Delft University of Technology have explored this effectby conducting laboratory experiments on simulated faults under <i>in-situ</i> fault conditions. They employed the high-temperature-pressure ring-shear friction apparatus installed in the HPT lab of the Utrecht University. During the experiments, different modes of perturbations were applied to the simulated fault, including normal stress steps (NSS), pulses (NSP), and oscillations (NSO), while shearing the fault at velocity of 1 μm/s. They measured different quantities with high sampling rates such as shear stress and the axial displacement. The enclosed datasets consist of the raw data from five individual experiments (u572, u573, u574, u828, and u829). In two experiments (u572 and u573), a few segments of particular interests are extracted for detailed analyses.

在部分实际场景中，地壳内的断层（fault）正承受着不同量级的快速应力扰动，其来源涵盖邻近或远场地震、水库季节性蓄水与泄水，以及油气和地热能开采活动。目前学界对这类应力变化对断层地震潜势的影响仍缺乏充分认知。乌得勒支大学（Utrecht University）与代尔夫特理工大学（Delft University of Technology）的研究人员围绕该问题展开了探索：他们在模拟原位（in-situ）断层条件下开展实验室模拟实验，采用了安装于乌得勒支大学HPT实验室的高温高压环剪摩擦试验机（high-temperature-pressure ring-shear friction apparatus）。实验过程中，研究团队以1 μm/s的剪切速度对模拟断层进行剪切作业，同时施加三类正应力扰动模式，分别为正应力阶跃（normal stress steps, NSS）、正应力脉冲（normal stress pulses, NSP）与正应力振荡（normal stress oscillations, NSO）。研究人员以高采样率测量了剪应力、轴向位移等多项物理量。本随附数据集包含5组独立实验的原始数据，编号依次为u572、u573、u574、u828与u829；其中在u572与u573两组实验中，研究人员提取了部分特定关注的实验片段用于精细化分析。