On the Accuracy and Efficiency of Transient Spectral Element Models for Seismic Wave Problems

Abstract

This study concentrates on transient multiphysical wave problems for simulating seismic waves. The presented models cover the coupling between elastic wave equations in solid structures and acoustic wave equations in fluids. We focus especially on the accuracy and efficiency of the numerical solution based on higher-order discretizations. The spatial discretization is performed by the spectral element method. For time discretization we compare three different schemes. The efficiency of the higher-order time discretization schemes depends on several factors which we discuss by presenting numerical experiments with the fourth-order Runge-Kutta and the fourth-order Adams-Bashforth time-stepping. We generate a synthetic seismogram and demonstrate its function by a numerical simulation.