2 Dimensional FEM Elastic Wave Modeling Considering Surface Topography

Forward modeling by construction of synthetic data is usually practiced in a horizontal surface and a few subsurface structures. However, in-situ surveys often take place in such topographic changes that the corrupted field data always make it difficult to interpret the right signals. To examine the propagation characteristic of elastic waves on the irregular surface, a general mesh generation code for finite element method was modified to consider the topography. By implementing this algorithm, the time domain modeling was practiced in some models with surface topography such as mound, channel, etc. The synthetic data obtained by receivers placed on surface also agreed with the analytic solution. The snapshots showing the total wave-field revealed the propagation characteristic of the elastic waves through complex subsurface structures and helped to identify the signals on the time traces. The transmission of Rayleigh waves along the surface, compressive waves, and sheer waves was observed. Moreover, it turned out that the Rayleigh waves behave like a new source at the edge.