ARTICLE

A flexible wavefield simulation method for layered viscoelastic media with dipping interfaces

CHAO WANG1 JINGHUA GAO1 WEI ZHAO2 HUIQUN YANG1
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2 Research Center of China Offshore Corporation, 100027, Beijing, P.R. China.,
JSE 2011, 20(4), 309–329;
Submitted: 9 June 2025 | Revised: 9 June 2025 | Accepted: 9 June 2025 | Published: 9 June 2025
© 2025 by the Authors. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution -Noncommercial 4.0 International License (CC-by the license) ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ )
Abstract

Wang, C., Gao, J., Zhao, W. and Yang, H.Q., 2011. A flexible wavefield simulation method for layered viscoelastic media with dipping interfaces. Journal of Seismic Exploration, 20: 309-329. Partial wavefield simulation is very useful in seismic interpretation and inversion. In this work, we propose a flexible and fast method for simulating seismic wave propagation in dipping layered viscoelastic media. This method can effectively calculate various partial wavefields, e.g., primary reflected P-waves or primary reflected S-waves, P-S or S-P converted waves, and the multiples which we are interested in. Since the vector wave equations are independent of the coordinate system, we alternately study wave propagation in global and local coordinate systems. Firstly, for a single dipping interface, the reflection and transmission coefficients of plane waves and the expressions of secondary waves are obtained by coordinate transformation. Then, the reflection and transmission coefficients of multi-layered media with dipping interfaces are obtained by a recursive approach. Lastly, a fast integral method is used to synthesize the wavefield for a point source, and a novel integral path is chosen through comparison. Analysis shows that this method is stable for all frequencies and slownesses. Numerical examples and a comparison with a finite difference solution demonstrate that our method is effective.

Keywords
partial wavefield
simulation
dipping interface
viscoelastic
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