Optimized Scheme of Finite Differences Applied to VTI Acoustic Modeling

Silva*, B. S.; Barbosa, C. H. S.; Contreras, C. S. R.; Silva, J. J.; Landau, L.

1. UFRJ/COPPE/LAMCE/Lab2M - Multidisciplinary Modeling Laboratory
2. PETREC - Petroleum Research and Technology
1 brunosi@lab2m.coppe.ufrj.br, 2 - clshenry@lab2m.coppe.ufrj.br , 3 candy226868@gmail.com,
4 josias@petrec.com.br, 5 landau@lamce.coppe.ufrj.br
Introduction
The wave propagation in complex geological structures has been an essential tool for seismic modeling
(CHU & STOFFA, 2012). The problems of simulating the propagation of seismic waves consists of solving
differential equations that describe the propagation within the Earth, in a set of initial, final and surrounding
conditions.
Among the several numerical methods proposed for solving such differential equations, the Finite
Difference Method (FDM) is one of the most popular methods, since it is easily implemented and is also one of
the most successful methods due to being ideal for complex models (ALFORD et al., 1974).
By seeking to improve the accuracy of FDM, CHU & STOFFA (2012) have found two Binomial
Window families that may be used to analytically derive Finite Difference (FD) operators. ZHANG & YAO
(2013) have reduced the FDM numerical dispersions, in the presence of components of high frequencies.
Within this context, the purpose of this paper is to present the accuracy obtained by means of the
application of the optimized coefficients in the VTI acoustic equation developed by Du et al. (2008). Analysis
concerning dispersion and stability was also made in order to generate the modeling parameters.

Acoustic equation of wave in VTI media

The anisotropic acoustic equations are usually deduced from the dispersion relation (Du et al., 2008).
Du et al. (2008) has proposed a coupled second-order equation. Such equation for 2D media is as follows:

(1a)
(1b)
in which

and are the wave field and auxiliary functions, respectively;

is the vertical velocity of wave qP;
is the normal moveout velocity (NMO) of wave qP;
is the horizontal

velocity of wave qP; and and are the anisotropic parameters defined by Thomsen (1986).
The discretization of the derivatives of equations (1) and (2) is usually performed with the scheme of
finite differences. A second-order discretization is performed in the time derivatives as follows:
(2a)
(2b)

The high discretization orders are used in the spatial derivatives:

in which is the FD operator order,

mesh spacing.

)]

(3a)

)]

are the coefficients of each stencil point,

(3b)

is the time step and

is the

Finite Difference Operator

The conventional FD operator for the second derivative that is special for function
in light of the Taylor series entanglement around point
as follows:

may be written

in which
is the sampling interval in axis , N is the discretization order and
the binomial window:
(

(4)
are the coefficients defined by

(5)

( )

A way to reduce the numerical dispersion is to adopt window functions for generating optimized
coefficients for Equation 1. ALFORD et al. (1974) have proposed a window
in order to obtain optimized FD
coefficients, which may be generated as follows:

in which

(6)

is generated from the following optimized window function

(

(7)
(

Using a final form for the optimized FD operator, it is possible to combine window function
parts of Equation 6 as follows:

in which

with all

(8)

is the final form of the coefficients to be used in implementation and may be defined as:

Conventional Coefficients - Taylor:

[

(9a)

(9b)

Optimized Coefficients - Binomial Window:

(9c)

It is difficult to determine parameter M of such window function and at the same time such parameter
needs to be handled with caution, since it may materially affect the final result. ZHANG & YAO (2013) have
determined coefficients
by using an optimization scheme that uses the maximization of the wave number
convergence, considering an error limitation. Analysis was made concerning the peak of error between the
optimized operator in the wave number domain and in the analytical wave number domain. In order to generate
the optimized coefficients, the Simulated Annealing (SA) minimization algorithm was used in this paper.

Absolute Error Analysis

In order to assess the dispersion improvement, graphs of the spectral error analysis of the second
derivative were prepared for different accuracy orders. For such purpose, the absolute spectral error formula was
used, which was written in light of the wave number normalized by the Nyquist wave number, that is:

Graph 1: Comparison of absolute error between Taylor and Optimized operator.

Numerical Examples
We have used stencils 2a, 2b, 3a and 3b to solve Equations 1a and 1b. FD coefficients are determined by
Equations 9a, 9b and 9c. The first example is a modeling in a homogeneous 2d model with elliptical anisotropy.
Figure 1 shows the modeling snapshot using the conventional method (Figure 1a) and the optimized method
(Figure 1b). It is possible to see that dispersive property was more developed in the optimized modeling than in
the conventional one. Figure 2 shows the time registration of seismic traces based on offset. In such event, the
level of dispersion was lower in the optimized modeling than in the conventional one.
Conclusions
The stencil of finite differences was used for estimating the spatial derivatives of Equations 1a and 1b.
Taylor coefficients generated by the binomial window were inserted in the discretization of VTI equation
proposed by Du et al. (2008) and compared with the ones arising from the optimized window function. The
results show that the optimized coefficients were more accurate. Such accuracy was achieved with the same
computational cost of the conventional method.

Figure 1: Modeling snapshots at 0.15s by the (a) conventional and (b) optimized methods for a 2D
homogeneous, acoustic elliptically anisotropic model;
,
,
,
,
,
. Grid dimensions are
.

Figure 2: Modeling records of Figure 1 by the (a) conventional and (b) optimized methods. Receivers have the
same depth as the source.

References
ALFORD, R. M., KELLY, K. R., BOORE, D. M., 1974. Accuracy of finite difference modeling of the acoustic
wave equation: Geophysics, v. 39, no. 6, pages 834842.
CHU, C., STOFFA, P. L., 2012. Determination of finite-difference weights using scaled binomial windows:
Geophysics, v. 77, pages 57-67.
DU, X., FLETCHER, R.P., and FOWLER, P. J., 2008. A new pseudo-acoustic wave equation for VTI media.
70th EAGE Conference & Exhibition - Rome, Italy.
THOMSEN, L., 1986. Weak elastic anisotropic: Geophysics, v. 51, pages 1954-1966.
ZHANG, J. H., YAO, Z. X., 2013. Optimized finite-difference operator for broad-band seismic wave modeling:
Geophysics, v.78, pages 1-6.