Three Dimensional TEM Forward Modeling Using FDTD Accelerated by GPU

Abstract:

Three dimensional inversion of transient electromagnetic (TEM) data is still challenging. The inversion speed mostly depends on the forward modeling. Finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method is one of the popular forward modeling scheme. In an explicit type, which is based on the Du Fort-Frankel scheme, the time step is under the constraint of quasi-static approximation. Often an upward-continuation boundary condition (UCBC) is applied on the earth-air surface to avoid time stepping in the model air. However, UCBC is not suitable for models with topography and has a low parallel efficiency. Modeling without UCBC may cause a much smaller time step because of the resistive attribute of the air and the quasi-static constraint, which may also low the efficiency greatly. Our recent research shows that the time step in the model air is not needed to be constrained by the quasi-static approximation, which can let the time step without UCBC much closer to that with UCBC. The parallel performance of FDTD is then largely released. On a computer with a 4-core CPU, this newly developed method is obviously faster than the method using UCBC. Besides, without UCBC, this method can be easily accelerated by Graphics Processing Unit (GPU). On a computer with a CPU of 4790k@4.4GHz and a GPU of GTX 970, the speed accelerated by CUDA is almost 10 times of that using CPU only. For a model with a grid size of 140×140×130, if the conductivity of the model earth is 0.02S/m, and the minimal space interval is 15m, it takes only 80 seconds to evolve the field from excitation to 0.032s.