Ground-to-Cable Strain Transfer in Unburied DAS on Earth and the Moon
Abstract
Distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) cables are typically buried to ensure good coupling and reduce unwanted atmospheric noise. Unburied deployments are attractive for rapid response applications and for missions to the Moon, where burial is impractical. Unburied DAS, however, suffers from degraded signal quality due to poor strain transfer. Here we quantify bending stress relief as a mechanism behind this loss: cable segments suspended between ground contact points accommodate ground strain by bending, so less axial strain reaches the fiber. We derive the strain transfer of such a segment analytically, compare it to numerical models, and validate it on 56 laboratory configurations of different cable types and lengths. The efficiency is governed by a single dimensionless parameter Θ, set by the ratio of the segment's sag to the cable radius. Keeping the loss below 3% requires a sag below about a quarter of the cable radius. The prediction is quasi-static, holding below the fundamental resonance of the segments. The sag is dominated by the curvature the cable retains from spooling and handling rather than by gravitational sagging, so Θ has to be measured and not computed from cable specifications. Because the gravitational contribution is small, the criterion applies equally to deployment on the Moon. Lunar gravity does reduce the friction available to resist slip at the contact points, but a force balance indicates that slip remains unlikely for natural moonquakes.
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BibTeX
@misc{probst2026groundtocable,
title = {{Ground-to-Cable Strain Transfer in Unburied DAS on Earth and the Moon}},
author = {Simone Probst and Olav Cornelius and Marc Serra Garcia and Johan O. A. Robertsson and Carly M. Donahue},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2608.10287},
eprint = {2608.10287},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.10287},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Ground-to-Cable Strain Transfer in Unburied DAS on Earth and the Moon
AU - Simone Probst
AU - Olav Cornelius
AU - Marc Serra Garcia
AU - Johan O. A. Robertsson
AU - Carly M. Donahue
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/30
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2608.10287
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.10287
AB - Distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) cables are typically buried to ensure good coupling and reduce unwanted atmospheric noise. Unburied deployments are attractive for rapid response applications and for missions to the Moon, where burial is impractical. Unburied DAS, however, suffers from degraded signal quality due to poor strain transfer. Here we quantify bending stress relief as a mechanism behind this loss: cable segments suspended between ground contact points accommodate ground strain by bending, so less axial strain reaches the fiber. We derive the strain transfer of such a segment analytically, compare it to numerical models, and validate it on 56 laboratory configurations of different cable types and lengths. The efficiency is governed by a single dimensionless parameter Θ, set by the ratio of the segment's sag to the cable radius. Keeping the loss below 3% requires a sag below about a quarter of the cable radius. The prediction is quasi-static, holding below the fundamental resonance of the segments. The sag is dominated by the curvature the cable retains from spooling and handling rather than by gravitational sagging, so Θ has to be measured and not computed from cable specifications. Because the gravitational contribution is small, the criterion applies equally to deployment on the Moon. Lunar gravity does reduce the friction available to resist slip at the contact points, but a force balance indicates that slip remains unlikely for natural moonquakes.
ER -