SPEED: SPectral Elements in Elastodynamics with Discontinuous Galerkin: a non‐conforming approach for 3D multi‐scale problems

This work presents a new high performance open‐source numerical code, namely SPectral Elements in Elastodynamics with Discontinuous Galerkin, to approach seismic wave propagation analysis in visco‐elastic heterogeneous three‐dimensional media on both local and regional scale. Based on non‐conforming high‐order techniques, such as the discontinuous Galerkin spectral approximation, along with efficient and scalable algorithms, the code allows one to deal with a non‐uniform polynomial degree distribution as well as a locally varying mesh size. Validation benchmarks are illustrated to check the accuracy, stability, and performance features of the parallel kernel, whereas illustrative examples are discussed to highlight the engineering applications of the method. The proposed method turns out to be particularly useful for a variety of earthquake engineering problems, such as modeling of dynamic soil structure and site‐city interaction effects, where accounting for multiscale wave propagation phenomena as well as sharp discontinuities in mechanical properties of the media is crucial. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.