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Super-Grid Modeling of the Elastic Wave Equation in Semi-Bounded Domains

Journal Article · · Communications in Computational Physics
Abstract

We develop a super-grid modeling technique for solving the elastic wave equation in semi-bounded two- and three-dimensional spatial domains. In this method, waves are slowed down and dissipated in sponge layers near the far-field boundaries. Mathematically, this is equivalent to a coordinate mapping that transforms a very large physical domain to a significantly smaller computational domain, where the elastic wave equation is solved numerically on a regular grid. To damp out waves that become poorly resolved because of the coordinate mapping, a high order artificial dissipation operator is added in layers near the boundaries of the computational domain. We prove by energy estimates that the super-grid modeling leads to a stable numerical method with decreasing energy, which is valid for heterogeneous material properties and a free surface boundary condition on one side of the domain. Our spatial discretization is based on a fourth order accurate finite difference method, which satisfies the principle of summation by parts. We show that the discrete energy estimate holds also when a centered finite difference stencil is combined with homogeneous Dirichlet conditions at several ghost points outside of the far-field boundaries. Therefore, the coefficients in the finite difference stencils need only be boundary modified near the free surface. This allows for improved computational efficiency and significant simplifications of the implementation of the proposed method in multi-dimensional domains. Numerical experiments in three space dimensions show that the modeling error from truncating the domain can be made very small by choosing a sufficiently wide super-grid damping layer. The numerical accuracy is first evaluated against analytical solutions of Lamb’s problem, where fourth order accuracy is observed with a sixth order artificial dissipation. We then use successive grid refinements to study the numerical accuracy in the more complicated motion due to a point moment tensor source in a regularized layered material.

Research Organization:
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE
DOE Contract Number:
AC52-07NA27344
OSTI ID:
1224410
Report Number(s):
LLNL-JRNL--610212
Journal Information:
Communications in Computational Physics, Journal Name: Communications in Computational Physics Journal Issue: 04 Vol. 16; ISSN 1815-2406
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

References (11)

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Stable and accurate wave-propagation in discontinuous media journal October 2008
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A perfectly matched layer for the absorption of electromagnetic waves journal October 1994
A high-order super-grid-scale absorbing layer and its application to linear hyperbolic systems journal June 2009
Radiation Boundary Conditions for Elastic Wave Propagation journal August 1990
A Fourth Order Accurate Finite Difference Scheme for the Elastic Wave Equation in Second Order Formulation journal September 2011

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