| There are mainly four types of waves in elastic wave propagation during an earthquake: P- (pressure or primary), S- (shear or secondary), Love, and Rayleigh waves. P- and S-waves are body waves traveling through the interior of the earth. As body waves reach the earth surface they become surface waves: Love and Rayleigh waves, which are responsible for damage and destruction associated with earthquake. In this thesis, these four types of waves are studied and modeled. The semi-discrete numerical scheme used to conduct simulation for these waves is the finite element method which is continuous in space and the finite difference method which is discrete in time. Finally, a simple case of earthquake, where a seismic wave propagates from the source through the soil medium along the fault path to the surface, is investigated. |
