Application of cellular automata modeling to seismic elastodynamics

摘要

This article details application of a physics-based cellular automata (CA) computational approach to model seismic events in an idealized linear-elastic medium. Application of rectangular-celled CA to the seismic problem is shown to yield discrete equations equivalent to the centered-difference finite difference (FD) approach. However, it is emphasized that the discrete equations are arrived at from the 'bottom up' using local rules vice 'top down' discretization of global partial differential equations. A further distinction between the two methods concerns the location of stresses and its impact on boundary conditions: the CA approach assigns stresses to the cell faces while the FD approach assigns stress collocated with displacement components at a single node. These differences may provide important perspective on modeling arbitrary geometry with a finite difference-like approach based on cell assembly, similar to finite element analysis. Implementation of the CA paradigm using autonomous, local cells fits naturally with object-oriented programming practices and lends itself readily to distributed computing. Results are provided for an example ground-shock simulation in which a differentiated Gaussian pulse acts on the surface of a linear-elastic half-space. The CA perspective suggests a simple treatment for the free-surface boundary condition. Comparison of the computed pressure, shear, and surface waves to those computed using a staggered-grid finite difference approach demonstrates very good agreement. In addition, the simulation results suggest that the CA approach may exhibit less 'ringing' as waves pass, and more symmetry in left-ward and right-ward moving waves. Future directions exploiting attractive attributes of the CA approach are suggested, to include large-scale simulation, multi-resolution analysis, and coupled-field modeling. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.