Stability conditions of explicit integration algorithms when using 3D viscoelastic artificial boundaries

Viscoelastic artificial boundaries are widely adopted in numerical simulations of wave propagation problems. When explicit time-domain integration algorithms are used, the stability condition of the boundary domain is stricter than that of the internal region due to the influence of the damping and stiffness of an viscoelastic artificial boundary. The lack of a clear and practical stability criterion for this problem, however, affects the reasonable selection of an integral time step when using viscoelastic artificial boundaries. In this study, we investigate the stability conditions of explicit integration algorithms when using three-dimensional (3D) viscoelastic artificial boundaries through an analysis method based on a local subsystem. Several boundary subsystems that can represent localized characteristics of a complete numerical model are established, and their analytical stability conditions are derived from and further compared to one another. The stability of the complete model is controlled by the corner regions, and thus, the global stability criterion for the numerical model with viscoelastic artificial boundaries is obtained. Next, by analyzing the impact of different factors on stability conditions, we recommend a stability coefficient for practically estimating the maximum stable integral time step in the dynamic analysis when using 3D viscoelastic artificial boundaries.