The Chebyshev spectral element method using staggered predictor and corrector for elastic wave simulations

Based on strong and weak forms of elastic wave equations, a Chebyshev spectral element method （SEM） using the Galerkin variational principle is developed by discretizing the wave equation in the spatial and time domains and introducing the preconditioned conjugate gradient （PCG）-element by element （EBE） method in the spatial domain and the staggered predictor/corrector method in the time domain. The accuracy of our proposed method is verified by comparing it with a finite-difference method （FDM） for a homogeneous solid medium and a double layered solid medium with an inclined interface. The modeling results using the two methods are in good agreement with each other. Meanwhile, to show the algorithm capability, the suggested method is used to simulate the wave propagation in a layered medium with a topographic traction free surface. By introducing the EBE algorithm with an optimized tensor product technique, the proposed SEM is especially suitable for numerical simulation of wave propagations in complex models with irregularly free surfaces at a fast convergence rate, while keeping the advantage of the finite element method.

High-precision solution to the moving load problem using an improved spectral element method

In this paper, the spectral element method(SEM)is improved to solve the moving load problem. In this method, a structure with uniform geometry and material properties is considered as a spectral element, which means that the element number and the degree of freedom can be reduced significantly. Based on the variational method and the Laplace transform theory, the spectral stiffness matrix and the equivalent nodal force of the beam-column element are established. The static Green function is employed to deduce the improved function. The proposed method is applied to two typical engineering practices—the one-span bridge and the horizontal jib of the tower crane. The results have revealed the following. First, the new method can yield extremely high-precision results of the dynamic deflection, the bending moment and the shear force in the moving load problem.In most cases, the relative errors are smaller than 1%. Second, by comparing with the finite element method, one can obtain the highly accurate results using the improved SEM with smaller element numbers. Moreover, the method can be widely used for statically determinate as well as statically indeterminate structures. Third, the dynamic deflection of the twin-lift jib decreases with the increase in the moving load speed, whereas the curvature of the deflection increases.Finally, the dynamic deflection, the bending moment and the shear force of the jib will all increase as the magnitude of the moving load increases.

Dynamic analysis of beam-cable coupled systems using Chebyshev spectral element method

The dynamic characteristics of a beam-cable coupled system are investigated using an improved Chebyshev spectral element method in order to observe the effects of adding cables on the beam. The system is modeled as a double Timoshenko beam system interconnected by discrete springs. Utilizing Chebyshev series expansion and meshing the system according to the locations of its connections, numerical results of the natural frequencies and mode shapes are obtained using only a few elements, and the results are validated by comparing them with the results of a finite-element method. Then the effects of the cable parameters and layout of connections on the natural frequencies and mode shapes of a fixed-pinned beam are studied. The results show that the modes of a beam-cable coupled system can be classified into two types, beam mode and cable mode, according to the dominant deformation. To avoid undesirable vibrations of the cable, its parameters should be controlled in a reasonable range, or the layout of the connections should be optimized.

A lumped mass Chebyshev spectral element method and its application to structural dynamic problems

A diagonal or lumped mass matrix is of great value for time-domain analysis of structural dynamic and wave propagation problems,as the computational efforts can be greatly reduced in the process of mass matrix inversion.In this study,the nodal quadrature method is employed to construct a lumped mass matrix for the Chebyshev spectral element method(CSEM).A Gauss-Lobatto type quadrature,based on Gauss-Lobatto-Chebyshev points with a weighting function of unity,is thus derived.With the aid of this quadrature,the CSEM can take advantage of explicit time-marching schemes and provide an efficient new tool for solving structural dynamic problems.Several types of lumped mass Chebyshev spectral elements are designed,including rod,beam and plate elements.The performance of the developed method is examined via some numerical examples of natural vibration and elastic wave propagation,accompanied by their comparison to that of traditional consistent-mass CSEM or the classical finite element method(FEM).Numerical results indicate that the proposed method displays comparable accuracy as its consistent-mass counterpart,and is more accurate than classical FEM.For the simulation of elastic wave propagation in structures induced by high-frequency loading,this method achieves satisfactory performance in accuracy and efficiency.

Seismic wave modeling in viscoelastic VTI media using spectral element method

Spectral element method（SEM） for elastic media is well known for its great flexibility and high accuracy in solving problems with complex geometries.It is an advanced choice for wave simulations.Due to anelasticity of earth media,SEM for elastic media is no longer appropriate.On fundamental of the second-order elastic SEM,this work takes the viscoelastic wave equations and the vertical transversely isotropic（VTI） media into consideration,and establishes the second-order SEM for wave modeling in viscoelastic VTI media.The second-order perfectly matched layer for viscoelastic VTI media is also introduced.The problem of handling the overlapped absorbed corners is solved.A comparison with the analytical solution in a twodimensional viscoelastic homogeneous medium shows that the method is accurate in the wave-field modeling.Furtherly,numerical validation also presents its great flexibility in solving wave propagation problems in complex heterogeneous media.This second-order SEM with perfectly matched layer for viscoelastic VTI media can be easily applied in wave modeling in a limited region.

A IP_N×IP_N Spectral Element Projection Method for the Unsteady Incompressible Navier-Stokes Equations

In this paper,we present a IP_N×IP_N spectral element method and a detailed comparison with existing methods for the unsteady incompressible Navier-Stokes equa- tions.The main purpose of this work consists of:(i) detailed comparison and discussion of some recent developments of the temporal discretizations in the frame of spectral el- ement approaches in space;(ii) construction of a stable IP_N×IP_N method together with a IP_N→IP_(N-2) post-filtering.The link of different methods will be clarified.The key feature of our method lies in that only one grid is needed for both velocity and pressure variables,which differs from most well-known solvers for the Navier-Stokes equations. Although not yet proven by rigorous theoretical analysis,the stability and accuracy of this one-grid spectral method are demonstrated by a series of numerical experiments.

A Global Spectral Element Model for Poisson Equations and Advective Flow over a Sphere

A global spherical Fourier-Legendre spectral element method is proposed to solve Poisson equations and advective flow over a sphere. In the meridional direction, Legendre polynomials are used and the region is divided into several elements. In order to avoid coordinate singularities at the north and south poles in the meridional direction, Legendre-Gauss-Radau points are chosen at the elements involving the two poles. Fourier polynomials are applied in the zonal direction for its periodicity, with only one element. Then, the partial differential equations are solved on the longitude-latitude meshes without coordinate transformation between spherical and Cartesian coordinates. For verification of the proposed method, a few Poisson equations and advective flows are tested. Firstly, the method is found to be valid for test cases with smooth solution. The results of the Poisson equations demonstrate that the present method exhibits high accuracy and exponential convergence. High- precision solutions are also obtained with near negligible numerical diffusion during the time evolution for advective flow with smooth shape. Secondly, the results of advective flow with non-smooth shape and deformational flow are also shown to be reasonable and effective. As a result, the present method is proved to be capable of solving flow through different types of elements, and thereby a desirable method with reliability and high accuracy for solving partial differential equations over a sphere.

Theoretical calculation of tidal Love numbers of the Moon with a new spectral element method

The tidal Love numbers of the Moon are a set of nondimensional parameters that describe the deformation responses of the Moon to the tidal forces of external celestial bodies.They play an important role in the theoretical calculation of the Moon’s tidal deformation and the inversion of its internal structure.In this study,we introduce the basic theory for the theoretical calculation of the tidal Love numbers and propose a new method of solving the tidal Love numbers:the spectral element method.Moreover,we explain the mathematical theory and advantages of this method.On the basis of this new method,using 10 published lunar internal structure reference models,the lunar surface and lunar internal tidal Love numbers were calculated,and the influence of different lunar models on the calculated Love numbers was analyzed.Results of the calculation showed that the difference in the second-degree lunar surface Love numbers among different lunar models was within 8.5%,the influence on the maximum vertical displacement on the lunar surface could reach±8.5 mm,and the influence on the maximum gravity change could reach±6μGal.Regarding the influence on the Love numbers inside the Moon,different lunar models had a greater impact on the Love numbers h_(2) and l_(2) than on k_(2) in the lower lunar mantle and core.

Spectral Element Simulation of Rotating Particle in Viscous Flow

Spectral element methods (SEM) are superior to general finite element methods (FEM) in achieving high order accuracy through p-type refinement. Owing to orthogonal polynomials in both expansion and test functions, the discretization errors in SEM could be reduced exponentially to machine zero so that the spectral convergence rate can be achieved. Inherited the advantage of FEM, SEM can enhance resolution via both h-type and p-type mesh-refinement. A penalty method was utilized to compute force fields in particulate flows involving freely moving rigid particles. Results were analyzed and comparisons were made;therefore, this penalty-implemented SEM was proven to be a viable method for two-phase flow problems.

An efficient source wavefield reconstruction scheme using single boundary layer values for the spectral element method

In the adjoint-state method, the forward-propagated source wavefield and the backward-propagated receiver wavefield must be available simultaneously either for seismic imaging in migration or for gradient calculation in inversion. A feasible way to avoid the excessive storage demand is to reconstruct the source wavefield backward in time by storing the entire history of the wavefield in perfectly matched layers. In this paper, we make full use of the elementwise global property of the Laplace operator of the spectral element method (SEM) and propose an efficient source wavefield reconstruction method at the cost of storing the wavefield history only at single boundary layer nodes. Numerical experiments indicate that the accuracy of the proposed method is identical to that of the conventional method and is independent of the order of the Lagrange polynomials, the element type, and the temporal discretization method. In contrast, the memory-saving ratios of the conventional method versus our method is at least N when using either quadrilateral or hexahedron elements, respectively, where N is the order of the Lagrange polynomials used in the SEM. A higher memorysaving ratio is achieved with triangular elements versus quadrilaterals. The new method is applied to reverse time migration by considering the Marmousi model as a benchmark. Numerical results demonstrate that the method is able to provide the same result as the conventional method but with about 1/25 times lower storage demand. With the proposed wavefield reconstruction method, the storage demand is dramatically reduced;therefore, in-core memory storage is feasible even for large-scale three-dimensional adjoint inversion problems.

A MPI PARALLEL PRECONDITIONED SPECTRAL ELEMENT METHOD FOR THE HELMHOLTZ EQUATION

Spectral element method is well known as high-order method, and has potential better parallel feature as compared with low order methods. In this paper, a parallel preconditioned conjugate gradient iterative method is proposed to solving the spectral element approximation of the Helmholtz equation. The parallel algorithm is shown to have good performance as compared to non parallel cases, especially when the stiffness matrix is not memorized. A series of numerical experiments in one dimensional case is carried out to demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed method.

Spectral Element Viscosity Methods for Nonlinear Conservation Laws on the Semi-Infinite Interval

In this paper we propose a spectral element: vanishing viscosity (SEW) method for the conservation laws on the semi-infinite interval. By using a suitable mapping, the problem is first transformed into a modified conservation law in a bounded interval, then the well-known spectral vanishing viscosity technique is generalized to the multi-domain case in order to approximate this trarsformed equation more efficiently. The construction details and convergence analysis are presented. Under a usual assumption of boundedness of the approximation solutions, it is proven that the solution of the SEW approximation converges to the uniciue entropy solution of the conservation laws. A number of numerical tests is carried out to confirm the theoretical results.

Finite Difference Preconditioners for Legendre Based Spectral Element Methods on Elliptic Boundary Value Problems

Finite difference type preconditioners for spectral element discretizations based on Legendre-Gauss-Lobatto points are analyzed. The latter is employed for the approximation of uniformly elliptic partial differential problems. In this work, it is shown that the condition number of the resulting preconditioned system is bounded independently of both of the polynomial degrees used in the spectral element method and the element sizes. Several numerical tests verify the h-p independence of the proposed preconditioning.

Chebyshev Spectral Element Analysis for Pore-Pressure of ERDs during Construction Period

Chebyshev spectral elements are applied to dissipation analysis of pore-pressure of roller compaction earth-rockfilled dams (ERD) during their construction. Nevertheless, the conventional finite element, for its excellent adaptability to complex geometrical configuration, is the most common way of spatial discretization for the pore-pressure solution of ERDs now [1]. The spectral element method, by means of the spectral isoparametric transformation, surmounts the disadvantages of disposing with complex geometry. According to the illustration of numerical examples, one can conclude that the spectral element methods have the following obvious advantages: 1) large spectral elements can be used in spectral element methods for the domains of homogeneous material;2) in the application of large spectral elements to spatial discretization, only a few leading terms of Chebyshev interpolation polynomial are taken to arrive at the solutions of better accuracy;3) spectral element methods have excellent convergence as well-known. Spectral method also is used to integrate the evolution equation in time to avoid the limitation of conditional stability of time-history

On the Monotonicity of Q^(3) Spectral Element Method for Laplacian

The monotonicity of discrete Laplacian, i.e., inverse positivity of stiffness matrix, implies discrete maximum principle, which is in general not true for high order accurate schemes on unstructured meshes. On the other hand,it is possible to construct high order accurate monotone schemes on structured meshes. All previously known high order accurate inverse positive schemes are or can be regarded as fourth order accurate finite difference schemes, which is either an M-matrix or a product of two M-matrices. For the Q3spectral element method for the two-dimensional Laplacian, we prove its stiffness matrix is a product of four M-matrices thus it is unconditionally monotone. Such a scheme can be regarded as a fifth order accurate finite difference scheme. Numerical tests suggest that the unconditional monotonicity of Q^(k) spectral element methods will be lost for k ≥ 9 in two dimensions, and for k ≥ 4 in three dimensions. In other words, for obtaining a high order monotone scheme, only Q^(2) and Q^(3) spectral element methods can be unconditionally monotone in three dimensions.

Three-dimensional simulations of strong ground motion in the Shidian basin based upon the spectral-element method

The strong motion of a small long and narrow basin caused by a moderate scenario earthquake is simulated by using the spectral-element method and the parallel computing technique.A total of five different geometrical profiles within the basin are used to analyze the generation and propagation of surface waves and their relation to the basin structures in both the time and frequency domain.The amplification effects are analyzed by the distribution of peak ground velocity(PGV)and cumulative kinetic energy(Ek) in the basin.The results show that in the 3D basin,the excitation of the fundamental and higher surface wave modes are similar to that of the 2D model.Small bowls in the basin have great influence on the amplification and distribution of strong ground motion,due to their lateral resonances when the wavelengths of the lateral surface waves are comparable to the size of the bowls.Obvious basin edge effects can be seen at the basin edge closer to the source for constructive interference between direct body waves and the basin-induced surface waves.The Ek distribution maps show very large values in small bowls and some corners in the basin due to the interference of waves propagating in different directions.A high impedance contrast model can excite more surface wave modes,resulting in longer shaking durations as well as more complex seismograms and PGV and Ek distributions.

Petrov-Galerkin Spectral Element Method for Mixed Inhomogeneous Boundary Value Problems on Polygons

The authors investigate Petrov-Galerkin spectral element method. Some results on Legendre irrational quasi-orthogonal approximations are established, which play important roles in Petrov-Galerkin spectral element method for mixed inhomogeneous boundary value problems of partial differential equations defined on polygons. As examples of applications, spectral element methods for two model problems, with the spectral accuracy in certain Jacobi weighted Sobolev spaces, are proposed. The techniques developed in this paper are also applicable to other higher order methods.

An H^m-conforming spectral element method on multi-dimensional domain and its application to transmission eigenvalues

We develop an Hm-conforming(m 1) spectral element method on multi-dimensional domain associated with the partition into multi-dimensional rectangles. We construct a set of basis functions on the interval [-1, 1] that are made up of the generalized Jacobi polynomials(GJPs) and the nodal basis functions.So the basis functions on multi-dimensional rectangles consist of the tensorial product of the basis functions on the interval [-1, 1]. Then we construct the spectral element interpolation operator and prove the associated interpolation error estimates. Finally, we apply the H2-conforming spectral element method to the Helmholtz transmission eigenvalues that is a hot problem in the field of engineering and mathematics.

Adaptive Conservative Cell Average Spectral Element Methods for Transient Wigner Equation in Quantum Transport

A new adaptive cell average spectral element method(SEM)is proposed to solve the time-dependent Wigner equation for transport in quantum devices.The proposed cell average SEM allows adaptive non-uniform meshes in phase spaces to reduce the high-dimensional computational cost of Wigner functions while preserving exactly the mass conservation for the numerical solutions.The key feature of the proposed method is an analytical relation between the cell averages of the Wigner function in the k-space(local electron density for finite range velocity)and the point values of the distribution,resulting in fast transforms between the local electron density and local fluxes of the discretized Wigner equation via the fast sine and cosine transforms.Numerical results with the proposed method are provided to demonstrate its high accuracy,conservation,convergence and a reduction of the cost using adaptive meshes.

SPECTRAL AND SPECTRAL ELEMENT METHODS FOR HIGH ORDER PROBLEMS WITH MIXED BOUNDARY CONDITIONS

In this paper, we investigate numerical methods for high order differential equations. We propose new spectral and spectral element methods for high order problems with mixed inhomogeneous boundary conditions, and prove their spectral accuracy by using the recent results on the Jacobi quasi-orthogonal approximation. Numerical results demonstrate the high accuracy of suggested algorithm, which also works well even for oscillating solutions.