A local collocation method to construct Dirichlet-type absorbing boundary conditions for transient scalar wave propagation problems

Abstract This paper introduces an effective way to equip the standard finite element method (FEM) for the solution of transient scalar wave propagation problems in unbounded domains. Similar to many other methods, we truncate the unbounded domain at an artificial boundary and convert the problem into a bounded one by prescribing appropriate absorbing boundary conditions (ABCs) at the truncating boundary. In the present method, the ABCs are time-dependent, and they are constructed by a simple collocation approach which is local in space and time. Therefore, the method does not make use of any routine schemes such as Fourier and Laplace transform. We shall show that the method is simple, and it can be easily applied to an explicit time domain FEM approach so that the sparsity of the FEM scheme (as well as its efficiency) can be preserved. The proposed method does not require any auxiliary variables as well as any approximating differential operators. This feature roots from the fact that here the ABCs are Dirichlet-type (or first-type) and thus they can be easily imposed to the corresponding boundaries. Therefore, the method shares some similarities with the conventional 1st and 2nd order ABC methods in terms of the simplicity of implementation. The method employs basis functions that exactly satisfy the governing and dispersion wave equations. The basis function can be easily adjusted to act as outgoing waves transmitting energy from the interior domain (near field) towards exterior domain (far field); i.e, they can cope with satisfaction of radiation boundary conditions. Several numerical examples are presented to evaluate the performance and to demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach. We shall show that the present method is capable of yielding results with a proper level of accuracy, similar to that of the perfectly matched layers method (PMLs), and it performs stably even in the case of long-term computations.