Research Poster/Project

By Christopher Hough and Josh Frost

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Abstract: With the increased use of smartphones over the past decade, and their accompanying applications, there is an app for almost anything.  This includes apps that use internal accelerometers that can be used to measure movement in 3D.  In this study, this technology is being applied to detect ground movement using the VibSensor app. When the cell phone is placed on a ground surface, the app can measure any ground motion (vertically or horizontally) which could include: seismic activity and other sources of ground motion including wave activity, earthquakes,  etc.  We specifically utilized VibSensor to measure motion produced along the wave-impacted Northern coast of Curacao. These were compared to the calmer Southern coast.  We will be analyzing the data measured in terms of 3D Power Spectrum, Tilt, Vibration, Spectral Analysis output, and 3D ground motion plots for both the Northern and Southern coast.  The preliminary results and analysis indicate more dramatic seismic activity on the Northern coast compared to the Southern coast, in part due to more intense wave activity on the former.  The data can then be correlated with weather patterns at the time of collection as well as established wave properties to explain the cause of patterns in the seismic activity.  The VibSensor app has benefits such as an email output function to email the data to the user, and a graphing function, which allows the user to see the seismic differences in patterns for each data-gathering period.

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Research Question: How can 3-D ground motion technology be used on mobile phones, and can gather data, such as in the case study of the coast of Curacao, to be analyzed or connected to recorded weather factors/patterns and to better understand wave properties?