Future stress accumulation zones around the main active faults by 3D numerical simulation in East Azerbaijan Province, Iran

Abstract

As a preliminary three-dimensional numerical analysis, this research aims to detect future zones of high-stress accumulation caused by the interaction of active faults within a 3D topographic geological block based on finite-element analysis. Stress analysis of the three-dimensional topographic model covers both static and dynamic loading caused by topographic loads and crustal movements, and can provide more realistic results. There are many applications to create topographic models from xyz data. Nevertheless, these models do not have the properties required in analytical software. Solid meshing of topographic blocks is abstruse and consumes much time and high CPU usage. Therefore, we first try to create a validated topographic shell model through the introduced methods including nodal projection and statistical analysis, and then upgrade it to a solid model. The stress equations are then assigned to each element of the solid model. The outputs include stress accumulation zones in both pre-failure and failure mode for the whole model. In addition, energy diagrams show the rate of main energies per time and accordingly, represent the perception of power for each energy output. Energy drop during the initial run time is consistent with the collision of the blocks of the model. Introduction