Physical modelling of a surface-wave survey over a laterally varying granular medium with property contrasts and velocity gradients

Laboratory experiments using laser-based ultrasonic techniques can be used to simulate seismic surveys on highly controlled small-scale physical models of the subsurface. Most of the time, such models consist in assemblies of homogeneous and consolidated materials. To enable the physical modelling of unconsolidated, heterogeneous and porous media, the use of granular materials is suggested here. We describe a simple technique to build a two-layer physical model characterized by lateral variations, strong property contrasts and velocity gradients. We use this model to address the efficiency of an innovative surface-wave processing technique developed to retrieve 2-D structures from a limited number of receivers. A step by step inversion procedure of the extracted dispersion curves yields accurate results so that the 2-D structure of the physical model is satisfactorily reconstructed. The velocity gradients within each layer are accurately retrieved as well, confirming current theoretical and experimental studies regarding guided surface acoustic modes in unconsolidated granular media.