HR: 0830h
AN: S41E-0132    [PDF]
TI: 3-D Voxel FEM Simulation of Seismic Wave Propagation in a Land-Sea Structure with Topography
AU: * Ikegami, Y
EM: y-ikegami@crc.co.jp
AF: CRC Solutions Corp., 2-7-5 Minamisuna Koto-ku, Tokyo, 136-8581 Japan
AU: Koketsu, K
EM: koketsu@eri.u-tokyo.ac.jp
AF: Earthquake Research Institute, University of Tokyo, 1-1-1 Yayoi Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, 113-0032 Japan
AB: We have already developed the voxel FEM (finite element method) code to simulate seismic wave propagation in a land structure with surface topography (Koketsu, Fujiwara and Ikegami, 2003). Although the conventional FEM often requires much larger memory, longer computation time and farther complicated mesh generation than the Finite Difference Method (FDM), this code consumes a similar amount of memory to FDM and spends only 1.4 times longer computation time thanks to the simplicity of voxels (hexahedron elements). The voxel FEM was successfully applied to inland earthquakes, but most earthquakes in a subduction zone occur beneath a sea, so that a simulation in a land-sea structure should be essential for waveform modeling and strong motion prediction there. We now introduce a domain of fluid elements into the model and formulate displacements in the elements using the Lagrange method. Sea-bottom motions are simulated for the simple land-sea models of Okamoto and Takenaka (1999). The simulation results agree well with their reflectivity and FDM seismograms. In order to enhance numerical stability, not only a variable mesh but also an adaptive time step is introduced. We can now choose the optimal time steps everywhere in the model based the Courant condition. This doubly variable formulation may result in inefficient parallel computing. The wave velocity in a shallow part is lower than that in a deeper part. Therefore, if the model is divided into horizontal slices and they are assigned to CPUs, a shallow slice will consist of only small elements. This can cause unbalanced loads on the CPUs. Accordingly, the model is divided into vertical slices in this study. They also reduce inter-processor communication, because a vertical cross section is usually smaller than a horizontal one. In addition, we will consider higher-order FEM formulation compatible to the fourth-order FDM. We will also present numerical examples to demonstrate the effects of a sea and surface topography on seismic waves and ground motions.
DE: 7203 Body wave propagation
DE: 7212 Earthquake ground motions and engineering
SC: Seismology [S]
MN: 2003 Fall Meeting