J. Bielak1, O. Ghattas2, E.-J. Kim3
CMES-Computer Modeling in Engineering & Sciences, Vol.10, No.2, pp. 99-112, 2005, DOI:10.3970/cmes.2005.010.099
Abstract We present a parallel octree-based finite element method for large-scale earthquake ground motion simulation in realistic basins. The octree representation combines the low memory per node and good cache performance of finite difference methods with the spatial adaptivity to local seismic wavelengths characteristic of unstructured finite element methods. Several tests are provided to verify the numerical performance of the method against Green's function solutions for homogeneous and piecewise homogeneous media, both with and without anelastic attenuation. A comparison is also provided against a finite difference code and an unstructured tetrahedral finite element code for a More >