Acoustic viscoelastic modeling by frequency-domain boundary element method

Earth medium is not completely elastic, with its viscosity resulting in attenuation and dispersion of seismic waves. Most viscoelastic numerical simulations are based on the finite-difference and finite-element methods. Targeted at viscoelastic numerical modeling for multilayered media, the constant- Q acoustic wave equation is transformed into the corresponding wave integral representation with its Green’s function accounting for viscoelastic coefficients. An efficient alternative for full-waveform solution to the integral equation is proposed in this article by extending conventional frequency-domain boundary element methods to viscoelastic media. The viscoelastic boundary element method enjoys a distinct characteristic of the explicit use of boundary continuity conditions of displacement and traction, leading to a semi-analytical solution with sufficient accuracy for simulating the viscoelastic effect across irregular interfaces. Numerical experiments to study the viscoelastic absorption of different Q values demonstrate the accuracy and applicability of the method.