An improved acoustic/elastic interface approach for 2D staggered grid finite-difference modeling of Rayleigh waves in the presence of surface topography

Abstract

Rayleigh waves are generated along the free-surface and their propagation can be strongly influenced by surface topography. Therefore, a critical aspect of Rayleigh-wave study is to understand the wave-propagation behavior in the presence of surface topography. The acoustic/elastic boundary approach was incorporated into a ‘stair-case’ mesh for Rayleigh-wave modeling in the presence of surface topography. The conventional acoustic/elastic boundary approach, however, fails to completely fulfill the free-surface boundary condition at some grid nodes, leading to unphysical simulation results. To solve this problem, we develop a stable acoustic/elastic boundary approach that fully satisfies the free-surface boundary condition by adjusting the free boundary conditions at problematic nodes in the mesh. The accuracy is demonstrated by modeling tests in two-dimensional isotropic models in the presence of surface topography. And compared to the improved vacuum formulation, the proposed method takes less time. Our approach optimizes the free-surface boundary condition and enables the high-precision numerical simulation of Rayleigh waves.