Finite difference method

Abstract: Two efficient finite difference methods for solving Richards' equation in one dimension are presented, and their use in a range of soils and conditions is investigated. Large time steps are possible when the mass-conserving mixed form of Richards' equation is combined with an implicit iterative scheme, while a hyperbolic sine transform for the matric potential allows large spatial increments even in dry, inhomogeneous soil. Infiltration in a range of soils can be simulated in a few seconds on a personal computer with errors of only a few percent in the amount and distribution of soil water. One of the methods adds points to the space grid as an infiltration or redistribution front advances, thus gaining considerably in efficiency over the other fixed grid method for infiltration problems. In 17-s computing, this advancing front method simulated infiltration, redistribution, and drainage for 50 days in an inhomogeneous soil with nonuniform initial conditions. Only 16 space and 21 time steps were needed for the simulation, which included early ponding with the development and dissipation of a perched water table.

Abstract: SUMMARY Surface topography has been considered a difficult task for seismic wave numerical modelling by the finite-difference method (FDM) because the most popular staggered finite-difference scheme requires a rectilinear grid. Even though there are numerous collocated grid schemes in other computational fields that could be used to solve the first-order hyperbolic equations, the lack of a stable free-surface boundary condition implementation for curvilinear grids also obstructs the adoption of curvilinear grids in seismic wave FDM modelling. In this study, we use generalized curvilinear grids that can fit the surface topography to discretize the computational domain and describe the implementation of a collocated grid finite-difference scheme, a higher order MacCormack scheme, to solve the first-order hyperbolic velocity-stress equations on the curvilinear grid. To achieve a sufficiently accurate and stable free-surface boundary condition implementation on the curvilinear grids, we propose the traction image method that antisymmetrically images the traction components instead of the stress components to the ghost points above the free surface. Since the velocity derivatives at the free surface are provided by the free-surface condition, we use a compact scheme to compute the velocity derivatives near the free surface and avoid the use of velocity values on the ghost points. Numerical tests verify that using the curvilinear grid, the collocated finite-difference scheme and the traction image technique can simulate seismic wave propagation in the presence of surface topography with sufficient accuracy.

Abstract: A three-dimensional (3D) time-domain numerical scheme for simulation of ground penetrating radar (GPR) on dispersive and inhomogeneous soils with conductive loss is described. The finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method is used to discretize the partial differential equations for time stepping of the electromagnetic fields. The soil dispersion is modeled by multiterm Lorentz and/or Debye models and incorporated into the FDTD scheme by using the piecewise-linear recursive convolution (PLRC) technique. The dispersive soil parameters are obtained by fitting the model to reported experimental data. The perfectly matched layer (PML) is extended to match dispersive media and used as an absorbing boundary condition to simulate an open space. Examples are given to verify the numerical solution and demonstrate its applications. The 3D PML-PLRC-FDTD formulation facilitates the parallelization of the code. A version of the code is written for a 32-processor system, and an almost linear speedup is observed.