Numerical Modelling of Earthquake Ground Motion

SIAM Geosciences Webinar Series
Date and Time: Wednesday, September 13, 2023, 12:00pm Eastern time zone
Speaker: Paola Antonietti, Politecnico di Milano

Abstract: A number of challenging geophysical applications require a flexible representation of the geometry and an accurate approximation of the solution field. Paradigmatic examples include seismic wave propagation and fractured reservoir simulations. The main challenges are i) the complexity of the physical domain due to the presence of localized geological irregularities, alluvial basins, faults, and fractures; ii) the heterogeneities in the medium, with significant and sharp contrasts; and iii) the coexistence of different physical models. The high-order discontinuous Galerkin FEM possesses the built-in flexibility to naturally accommodate both nonmatching meshes, possibly made of polygonal and polyhedral elements, and high-order approximations in any space dimension. In this talk, I will discuss recent advances in the development and analysis of high-order DG methods on polygonal and polyhedral grids for the numerical modeling of seismic wave propagation phenomena. I will analyze the stability and the theoretical properties of the scheme and present some applications on real large-scale seismic events in three-dimensional complex media.

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