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A Hybrid Finite Difference Finite Element Approach for 3D Magnetotelluric Forward Modeling
- Publisher: European Association of Geoscientists & Engineers
- Source: Conference Proceedings, 80th EAGE Conference and Exhibition 2018, Jun 2018, Volume 2018, p.1 - 5
Abstract
We have developed a new method to solve Magnetotelluric forward problem. There are two popular numerical solution techniques for solving partial differential equations in electromagnetics, finite difference and finite element methods. The finite difference approach is known to be easily applicable and easy to solve the linear matrix equations arising from discretization while the finite elements method is great for representing topography however it is time consuming to form its stiffness matrix and it is also more difficult to solve the linear matrix equations due to number of non-zero entries in it. We developed a new algorithm to deploy finite elements and finite differences methods together in a single mesh using distorted hexahedra and regular blocks. By doing that, we put to use beneficial aspects of these two methods. Results show that the hybrid approach is almost as fast as finite differences method while it is as accurate as finite elements method.