Connection machine simulation of ultrasonic wave propagation in materials III: The three-dimensional case

A formalism for the simulation by parallel processing of the propagation of ultrasonic pulses of arbitrary shape (i.e. not restricted to continuous waves) in complex media is presented. Recursive relationships yielding the time evolution of the displacement field are derived for both homogeneous and heterogeneous materials. In the latter case, formulas for cross-points at the intersection of up to eight different materials are obtained. A few examples of numerical results obtained with the proposed method are shown to demonstrate its applicability and efficiency. The problem of visualization of the results is also briefly discussed.