Browsing by Subject "multiscale"

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    Multiscale Method for Elastic Wave Propagation in the Heterogeneous, Anisotropic Media
    (2014-08-05) Gao, Kai
    Seismic wave simulation in realistic Earth media with full wavefield methods is a fundamental task in geophysical studies. Conventional approaches such as the finite-difference method and the finite-element method solve the wave equation in geological models represented with discrete grids and elements. When the Earth model includes complex heterogeneities at multiple spatial scales, the simulation requires fine discretization and therefore a system with many degrees of freedom, which often exceeds current computational abilities. In this dissertation, I address this problem by proposing new multiscale methods for simulating elastic wave propagation based on previously developed algorithms for solving the elliptic partial differential equations and the acoustic wave equation. The fundamental motivation for developing the multiscale method is that it can solve the wave equation on a coarsely discretized mesh by incorporating the effects of fine-scale medium properties using so-called multiscale basis functions. This can greatly reduce computation time and degrees of freedom compared with conventional methods. I first derive a numerical homogenization method for arbitrarily heterogeneous, anisotropic media that utilizes the multiscale basis functions determined from a local linear elasticity equation to compute effective, anisotropic properties, and these equivalent elastic medium parameters can be used directly in existing elastic modeling algorithms. Then I extend the approach by constructing multiple basis functions using two types of appropriately defined local spectral linear elasticity problems. Given the eigenfunctions determined from local spectral problems, I develop a generalized multiscale finite-element method (GMsFEM) for elastic wave propagation in heterogeneous, anisotropic media in both continuous Galerkin (CG) and discontinuous Galerkin (DG) formulations. The advantage of the multiscale basis functions is they are model-dependent, unlike the predefined polynomial basis functions applied in conventional finite-element methods. For this reason, the GMsFEM can effectively capture the influence of fine-scale variation of the media. I present results for several numerical experiments to verify the effectiveness of both the numerical homogenization method and GMsFEM. These tests show that the effectiveness of the multiscale method relies on the appropriate choice of boundary conditions that are applied for the local problem in numerical homogenization method and on the selection of basis functions from a large set of eigenfunctions contained in local spectral problems in GMsFEM. I develop methods for solving both these problems, and the results confirm that the multiscale method can be powerful tool for providing accurate full wavefield solutions in heterogeneous, anisotropic media, yet with reduced computation time and degrees of freedom compared with conventional full wavefield modeling methods. Specially, I applied the DG-GMsFEM to the Marmousi-2 elastic model, and find that DG-GMsFEM can greatly reduce the computation time compared with continuous Galerkin (CG) FEM.
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    Multiscale numerical methods for some types of parabolic equations
    (2009-05-15) Nam, Dukjin
    In this dissertation we study multiscale numerical methods for nonlinear parabolic equations, turbulent diffusion problems, and high contrast parabolic equations. We focus on designing and analysis of multiscale methods which can capture the effects of the small scale locally. At first, we study numerical homogenization of nonlinear parabolic equations in periodic cases. We examine the convergence of the numerical homogenization procedure formulated within the framework of the multiscale finite element method. The goal of the second problem is to develop efficient multiscale numerical techniques for solving turbulent diffusion equations governed by celluar flows. The solution near the separatrices can be approximated by the solution of a system of one dimensional heat equations on the graph. We study numerical implementation for this asymptotic approach, and spectral methods and finite difference scheme on exponential grids are used in solving coupled heat equations. The third problem we study is linear parabolic equations in strongly channelized media. We concentrate on showing that the solution depends on the steady state solution smoothly. As for the first problem, we obtain quantitive estimates for the convergence of the correctors and some parts of truncation error. These explicit estimates show us the sources of the resonance errors. We perform numerical implementations for the asymptotic approach in the second problem. We find that finite difference scheme with exponential grids are easy to implement and give us more accurate solutions while spectral methods have difficulties finding the constant states without major reformulation. Under some assumption, we justify rigorously the formal asymptotic expansion using a special coordinate system and asymptotic analysis with respect to high contrast for the third problem.