Analysis of transient wave propagation in inhomogeneous media using edge-based gradient smoothing technique and bathe time integration method

Abstract

As is known to all, the classical finite element method (FEM) always fails to effectively solve the wave problems in the relatively large wave numbers due to the troublesome numerical error issue. In this paper, the standard FEM with edge-based gradient smoothing technique and Bathe time integration method is developed to analyze the transient wave propagation problems in inhomogeneous media. We explicitly show that the numerical error of the calculated solutions for transient wave propagation problems consists of two different parts, namely the spatial discretization error and the temporal discretization error. Due to the edge-based gradient smoothing technique and the appropriate numerical dissipation effects from Bathe time integration scheme, it is found that the total numerical error can be significantly suppressed and more accurate numerical solutions can be obtained. Several typical numerical examples have been conducted to examine the capacity of the proposed method in solving transient wave propagation problems in inhomogeneous media.