Performance and Convergence of the Non-periodic Homogenization for the 3D Elastic Wave Equation
Paul Cupillard, Yann Capdeville · Proceedings · 2017
Summary Seismic waves propagating in the Earth are affected by different sizes of heterogeneities. When modelling these waves using numerical methods, taking into account small heterogeneities is a challenge because it often requires important meshing efforts and leads to high, sometimes prohibitive, numerical costs. In the recent years, this problem has been overcome by applying the so-called homogenization technique to the elastic wave equation in non-periodic media. This technique allows to upscale the small heterogeneities and yields a smooth effective medium. In the present paper, we describe a 3D implementation of the method and we show that it can handle large and highly heterogeneous models with an acceptable speed and a good accuracy. This development opens the path to the correct account of the effect of small scale structures on the seismic wave propagation in complex 3D models of the subsurface.