Dynamic Rupture Modeling with a Rate and State Friction Law in a Discontinuous Galerkin Method
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: Earthquake rupture modeling has proven to be a useful tool to understand the physics behind different slip sequences inferred from observations. However, modeling the earthquakes dynamics is challenging due to the complex frictional behavior during the rupture evolution. We implement a rate-and-state friction law in DGCrack (Tago et al., 2012), a discontinuous Galerkin method, with a time staggered strategy inspired by the work of Rojas et al. (2009). We propose an ad hoc flux along the fault instead of an upwind flux commonly used in discontinuous Galerkin schemes (e.g. Zhang et al., 2023). While this approach generates high-frequency oscillations (HFOs), we control them through an artificial damping parameter without compromising spectral content. We prove that DGCrack correctly reproduces fault waveforms compared with other higher-order state of the art numerical strategies. We show that the artificial damping produces a numerical dispersion and dissipation in our simulations that are actually smaller than the introduced intrinsically by an upwind flux.
Source: Geofísica Internacional
Language: English
Subfield: Geophysics
Field: Earth and Planetary Sciences
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W7214527591