A goal-oriented adaptive finite-element approach for plane wave 3-D electromagnetic modelling

Abstract

We have developed a novel goal-oriented adaptive mesh refinement approach for finite-element methods to model plane wave electromagnetic (EM) fields in 3-D earth models based on the electric field differential equation. To handle complicated models of arbitrary conductivity, magnetic permeability and dielectric permittivity involving curved boundaries and surface topography, we employ an unstructured grid approach. The electric field is approximated by linear curl-conforming shape functions which guarantee the divergence-free condition of the electric field within each tetrahedron and continuity of the tangential component of the electric field across the interior boundaries. Based on the non-zero residuals of the approximated electric field and the yet to be satisfied boundary conditions of continuity of both the normal component of the total current density and the tangential component of the magnetic field strength across the interior interfaces, three a-posterior error estimators are proposed as a means to drive the goal-oriented adaptive refinement procedure. The first a-posterior error estimator relies on a combination of the residual of the electric field, the discontinuity of the normal component of the total current density and the discontinuity of the tangential component of the magnetic field strength across the interior faces shared by tetrahedra. The second a-posterior error estimator is expressed in terms of the discontinuity of the normal component of the total current density (conduction plus displacement current). The discontinuity of the tangential component of the magnetic field forms the third a-posterior error estimator. Analytical solutions for magnetotelluric (MT) and radiomagnetotelluric (RMT) fields impinging on a homogeneous half-space model are used to test the performances of the newly developed goal-oriented algorithms using the above three a-posterior error estimators. A trapezoidal topographical model, using normally incident EM waves at both MT and RMT frequencies, is adopted to further test the convergence of the newly developed algorithms against a surface integral approach. Next, the 3D-1 benchmark model from the COMMEMI project is used to show the efficiency of the goal-oriented adaptive algorithm and to compare our solutions against volume integral solutions and other finite-element solutions. For all three test cases, we found that the error estimator using face jumps of normal components of current density embedded in the goal-oriented adaptive refinement procedure shows the most robust performance.