Influence of the combination of ambient and glacial stresses on the response of a viscoelastic Earth

Influence of the combination of ambient and glacial stresses on the response of a viscoelastic Earth

Morra, Fabrizio (TU Delft Aerospace Engineering)

van der Wal, W. (mentor)
Blank, B. (graduation committee)

Delft University of Technology

Aerospace Engineering

2021-02-22

The evolution of ice loads during the last Ice Age causes an ongoing Earth response with deformations and stress fields. The viscosity of the mantle depends on stresses, therefore the model stresses should be combined with ambient stresses such as due to mantle convection. This combination has been successfully simulated in the FEM software ABAQUS.

At each timestep background stresses are added to existing component and the Mises stress is recalculated to be used in a custom creep law. This leads to a new viscosity leading to different stress components, which is solved an iterative procedure.

This work shows that the initial model provided can be adapted to simulate this iterative process with a loop inside each timestep of the computation. Results show that stresses increase with time while deformations and viscosity decrease, an opposite trend compared to a non-ambient stresses case.

geodesy
Finite Element Method
Python
MATLAB
Data analysis
Glacial isostatic adjustment
Planetary Sciences

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:a028ea99-5e1c-41de-8fc4-458ace4833a5

Student theses

master thesis

© 2021 Fabrizio Morra