MultiFaultSourcesΒΆ

Starting from version 3.2, the OpenQuake Engine is able to manage MultiFaultSources, which are special sources used for UCERF-like models.

Unlike regular sources, MultiFaultSources are not self-consistent: they exist only in relation to a geometryModel which is a list of surfaces (only planarSurfaces and kiteSurfaces are supported), each one with an ID. MultiFaultSources are lists of nonparametric ruptures with values mag, rake, probs_occur and IDs (called sectionIndexes) taken from the geometryModel.

In order to understand MultiFaultSources, The example to study is in the directory qa_tests_data/classical/case_65 in the engine repository. In this example the geometryModel (the file sections.xml) contains two kiteSurfaces with IDs s1 and s2 respectively; there is a single MultiFaultSource with the following content:

<multiFaultSource id="1" name="Test1">
  <multiPlanesRupture probs_occur="0.8 0.2">
    <magnitude>5.0</magnitude>
    <sectionIndexes indexes="s1"/>
    <rake>90</rake>
  </multiPlanesRupture>
  <multiPlanesRupture probs_occur="0.7 0.3">
    <magnitude>6.0</magnitude>
    <sectionIndexes indexes="s1,s2"/>
    <rake>90</rake>
  </multiPlanesRupture>
  <multiPlanesRupture probs_occur="0.9 0.1">
    <magnitude>5.2</magnitude>
    <sectionIndexes indexes="s2"/>
    <rake>90</rake>
  </multiPlanesRupture>
</multiFaultSource>

The probs_occur must sum up to 1 and the number of probabilities must be uniform across the MultiFaultSource; in this example there always two probs_occur for each rupture.

When the engine reads a multiFaultSource XML file, a MultiFaultSource object is instantiated. Such object cannot be used until the method .create_inverted_index(sections) is called. That is the essential method associating the sectionIndices to the section objects. The reading happens in three steps:

  1. read and instantiate all MultiFaultSources
  2. read the geometryFile and instantiate a dictionary of sections section_id -> surface
  3. call src.set_sections(sections) for each MultiFaultSource: this will create an attribute .sections pointing to the sections dictionary

Only after the .sections dictionary has been set it is possible to call .iter_ruptures and to instantiate the underlying NonParametricProbabilisticRupture objects. Each rupture will have a surface; if the rupture contains a single section index the surface will be the surface in the geometryModel; if the ruptures contains multiple section indexes the surface will be a MultiSurface built from the corresponding surfaces in the geometryModel.

In our example the first rupture will be associated to the KiteSurface s1, the third rupture to the KiteSurface s2 and the second rupture will be associated to the MultiSurface obtained from the KiteSurfaces s1 and s2.