Efficient Finite Element Modeling of Scattering for 2D and 3D Problems

The scattering of waves by defects is central to ultrasonic NDE and SHM. In general, scattering problems must be modeled using direct numerical methods such as finite elements (FE), which is very computationally demanding. The most efficient way is to only model the scatterer itself and a minimal region of the surrounding host medium, and this was previously demonstrated for 2-dimensional (2D) bulk wave scattering problems in isotropic media. An encircling array of monopole and dipole sources is used to inject an arbitrary wavefront onto the scatterer and the scattered field is monitored by a second encircling array of monitoring points. From this data, the scattered field can be projected out to any point in space. If the incident wave is chosen to be a plane wave incident from a given angle and the scattered field is projected to distant points in the far-field of the scatterer, the far-field scattering or S-matrix may be obtained, which encodes all the available scattering information. In this paper, the technique is generalized to any elastic wave geometry in both 2D and 3D, where the latter can include guided wave scattering problems. A further refinement enables the technique to be employed with free FE meshes of triangular or tetrahedral elements.