On the comparison of properties of Rayleigh waves in elastic and viscoelastic media

Abstract

Dispersion properties of Rayleigh‐type surface waves can be used for imaging and characterizing the shallow subsurface. This paper uses the time‐domain finite difference method on the Rotated staggered grid to simulates Rayleigh waves in complex viscoelastic media. The second‐order displacement‐stress viscoelastic wave equations are used in the computational domain and the unsplit convolutional perfectly matched layer is used as the absorbing boundary condition. The elastic wave‐fields in a two‐layer model is simulated to prove the correctness of this scheme. The viscoelastic Rayleigh waves are calculated and the dispersion properties are analyzed. The dispersion curve changes with different values of quality factor Q in the media and higher modes of Rayleigh waves are generated and possess significant amounts of energy with strong attenuation.