Apparent phase velocities and fundamental-mode phase velocities of Rayleigh waves

Rayleigh wave dispersion data usually appear in the form of multimodal spectra for a layered model structure. The number of dispersion modal curves depends on the number of layers in the model. The measured dispersion velocities from the frequency-wavenumber (F-K) space, however, may not represent the true phase velocities of the fundamental-mode dispersion curve, but apparent phase velocities. The present study discusses how multimode curves are generated in the multichannel analysis of surface waves (MASW) method and the cause of the apparent velocity produced by the F-K method. Results from a field trial demonstrate that apparent phase velocities fail to reveal thin layers with low velocities. A better agreement of the inverted model with the geotechnical record is obtained by using the data points extracted from the fundamental-mode curve of the MASW spectral image. © 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.link_to_subscribed_fulltex