Surface-wave testing of soil sites using multichannel simulation with one-receiver

•MSOR testing is equivalent to MASW for characterizing dispersion data of soil profiles.•MSOR testing with embedded geophones in the form of MMSW testing can measure more extensive multimodal dispersion data.•MSOR can reduce instrumentation cost and improve portability.

This paper presents a study on the application of the multichannel simulation with one-receiver (MSOR) surface-wave testing method for geophysical profiling of soil sites. The MSOR method reverses the roles of source and receiver in the widely-used multi-channel analysis of surface waves (MASW) method. To examine the feasibility and accuracy of utilizing MSOR for soil sites, finite element simulations of MSOR testing are performed for three types of soil profiles containing horizontal interfaces, a vertical fault, and a dipping interface, respectively. The effects of variations in the moving impact locations on the uncertainty and repeatability of the dispersion trends are analyzed for the different soil profiles. Real-world case studies are carried out to examine the equivalency of the MSOR and MASW methods for quantifying surface-wave dispersion trends of soil profiles, as well as the advantages of MSOR testing with embedded geophones to obtain more extensive multimodal dispersion data. From the computational simulations and field case studies, MSOR is demonstrated to be equivalent to MASW testing for practical purposes. In addition, MSOR has the advantages of reduced instrumentation cost, improved portability, enhanced ability to measure multi-mode dispersion curves by utilizing borehole geophones, and the potential for improving efficiency of 3-D stiffness profiling.