We present new and efficient quadrature rules for computing the stiffness matrices of mass-lumped tetrahedral elements for wave propagation modeling. These quadrature rules allow for a more efficient implementation of the mass-lumped finite element method and can handle materials that are heterogeneous within the element without loss of the convergence rate. The quadrature rules are designed for the specific function spaces of recently developed mass-lumped tetrahedra, which consist of standard polynomial function spaces enriched with higher-degree bubble functions. For the degree-2 mass-lumped tetrahedron, the most efficient quadrature rule seems to be an existing 14-point quadrature rule, but for tetrahedra of degrees 3 and 4, we construct new quadrature rules that require fewer integration points than those currently available in the literature. Several numerical examples confirm that this approach is more efficient than computing the stiffness matrix exactly and that an optimal order of convergence is maintained, even when material properties vary within the element.@en

We analyse the dispersion properties of two types of explicit finite element methods for modelling acoustic and elastic wave propagation on tetrahedral meshes, namely mass-lumped finite element methods and symmetric interior penalty discontinuous Galerkin methods, both combined with a suitable Lax–Wendroff time integration scheme. The dispersion properties are obtained semi-analytically using standard Fourier analysis. Based on the dispersion analysis, we give an indication of which method is the most efficient for a given accuracy, how many elements per wavelength are required for a given accuracy, and how sensitive the accuracy of the method is to poorly shaped elements.@en

We present a new accuracy condition for constructing mass-lumped elements. This condition is less restrictive than the one previously used and enabled us to construct new mass-lumped tetrahedral elements for 3D wave propagation modelling. The new degree-2 and degree-3 elements require significantly fewer nodes than previous versions and mass-lumped tetrahedral elements of higher degree had not been found before. We also present a new accuracy condition for evaluating the stiffness matrix-vector product. This enabled us to obtain tailored quadrature rules for the new elements that further reduce the computational cost.@en

Spectral elements with mass lumping allow for explicit time stepping and are therefore attractive for modelling seismic wave propagation. Their formulation on rectangular elements is straighforward, but for tetrahedra only elements up to degree 3 are known. To preserve accuracy after mass lumping, these elements require additional nodes that make them computationally more expensive. Here, we propose a new, less restrictive accuracy condition for the construction of these continuous mass-lumped elements. This enables us to construct several new tetrahedral elements. The new degree-2 and degree-3 elements require 15 and 32 nodes, while the existing ones have 23 and 50 nodes per element, respectively. We also developed degree-4 tetrahedral elements with 60, 61, or 65 nodes per element. Numerical examples confirm that the various mass-lumped elements maintain the optimal order of accuracy and show that the new elements are significantly more efficient in terms of accuracy versus compute time than the existing ones.@en

We present a new accuracy condition for the construction of continuous mass-lumped elements. This condition is less restrictive than the one currently used and enabled us to construct new mass-lumped tetrahedral elements of degrees 2 to 4. The new degree-2 and degree-3 tetrahedral elements require 15 and 32 nodes per element, respectively, while currently, these elements require 23 and 50 nodes, respectively. The new degree-4 elements require 60, 61, or 65 nodes per element. Tetrahedral elements of this degree had not been found until now. We prove that our accuracy condition results in a mass-lumped finite element method that converges with optimal order in the $L^2$-norm and energy-norm. A dispersion analysis and several numerical tests confirm that our elements maintain the optimal order of accuracy and show that the new mass-lumped tetrahedral elements are more efficient than the current ones. @en

Mass-lumped finite elements on tetrahedra offer more flexibility than their counterpart on hexahedra for the simulation of seismic wave propagation, but there is no general recipe for their construction, unlike as with hexahedra. Earlier, we found new elements up to degree 4 that have significantly less nodes than previously known elements by sharpening the accuracy criterion. A similar approach applied to numerical quadrature of the stiffness matrix provides a speed improvement in the acoustic case and an additional factor 1.5 in the isotropic elastic case. We present numerical results for a homogeneous and heterogeneous isotropic elastic test problem on a sequence of successively finer meshes and for elements of degrees 1 to 4. A comparison of their accuracy and computational efficiency shows that a scheme of degree 4 has the best performance when high accuracy is desired, but the one of degree 3 is more efficient at intermediate accuracy. @en

We present a new accuracy condition for constructing mass-lumped finite elements. This new condition is less restrictive than the one that has been used for several decades and enabled us to construct new mass-lumped tetrahedral elements of degrees 2,3, and 4. The new degree-2 and degree-3 elements require 14 and 32 nodes, respectively, while the degree-2 and degree-3 elements currently available in the literature require 23 and 50 nodes, respectively. Mass-lumped tetrahedral elements of degree 4 had not been found until now. The resulting mass-lumped finite element method is suitable for 3D wave propagation problems, since it can accurately capture the effects of a complex geometry and since it results in a fully explicit time-stepping scheme. A dispersion analysis and several numerical tests illustrates the efficiency of this new method. In particular, they illustrate a significant reduction in degrees of freedom, number of time steps, and computation time for a given accuracy compared to other finite element methods, such as the previous mass-lumped finite element methods or the discontinuous Galerkin method.@en