Out-of-Plane Elastic Waves in 2D Models of Solids: A Case Study for a Nonlocal Discretization Scheme with Reduced Numerical Dispersion

The paper addresses the problem of numerical dispersion in simulations of wave propagation in solids. This characteristic of numerical models results from both spatial discretization and temporal discretization applied to carry out transient analyses. A denser mesh of degrees of freedom could be a straightforward solution to mitigate numerical dispersion, since it provides more advantageous relation between the model length scale and considered wavelengths. However, this approach also leads to higher computational effort. An alternative approach is the application of nonlocal discretization schemes, which employ a relatively sparse spatial distribution of nodes. Numerical analysis carried out to study the propagation of elastic waves in isotropic solid materials is demonstrated. Fourier-based nonlocal discretization for continuum mechanics is introduced for a two-dimensional model undergoing out-of-plane wave propagation. The results show gradual increase of the effectiveness of this approach while expanding the region of nonlocal interactions in the numerical model. A challenging case of high ratio between the model length scale and wavelength is investigated to present capability of the proposed approach. The elaborated discretization method also provides the perspective of accurate representation of any arbitrarily shaped dispersion relation based on physical properties of modelled materials.