Numerical Improvement of The Three-dimensional Boundary Element Method

Boundary element methods have been applied to calculate the seismic response of various types of geological structures. Dimensionality reduction and a relatively easy fulfillment of radiation conditions at infinity are recognized advantages over domain approaches. Indirect Boundary Element Method (IBEM) formulations give rise to large systems of equations, and the considerable amount of operations required for solving them suggest the possibility of getting some benefit from exploitation of sparsity patterns. In this article, a brief study on the structure of the linear systems derived from the IBEM method is carried out. Applicability of a matrix static condensation algorithm to the inversion of the IBEM coefficient matrix is explored, in order to optimize the numerical burden of such method. Seismic response of a 3-D alluvial valley of irregular shape, as originally proposed by Sánchez-Sesma and Luzon (1995), was computed and comparisons on time consumption and memory allocation are established. An alternative way to deal with those linear systems is the use of threshold criteria for the truncation of the coefficient matrix, which implies the solution of sparse approximations instead of the original full IBEM systems (Ortiz-Aleman et al., 1998). Performance of this optimized approach is evaluated on its application to the case of a three-dimensional alluvial basin with irregular shape. Transfer functions were calculated for the frequency range from 0 to 1.25 Hz. Inversion of linear systems by using this algorithm lead to significant saving on computer time and memory allocation relative to the original IBEM formulation. Results represent an extension in the range of application of the IBEM method.