Ilario Mazzieri

Paola F. Antonietti, Omer M. O. Abdalla, Michelangelo G. Garroni et al.

Piezoelectric Micromachined Ultrasonic Transducers (PMUTs) are essential for next-generation ultrasonic sensing and imaging due to their bidirectional electromechanical behavior, compact design, and compatibility with low-voltage electronics. As PMUT arrays grow in size and complexity, efficiently modeling their coupled electromechanical-acoustic behavior becomes increasingly challenging. This work presents a novel computational framework that combines model order reduction with a Discontinuous Galerkin Spectral Element Method (DGSEM) paradigm to simulate large PMUT arrays. Each PMUT's mechanical behavior is represented using a reduced set of vibration modes, which are coupled to an acoustic domain model to describe the full array. To further improve efficiency, a secondary acoustic domain is connected via DG interfaces, enabling non-conforming mesh refinement, with variable approximation order, and accurate wave propagation. The framework is implemented in the SPectral Elements in Elastodynamics with Discontinuous Galerkin (SPEED) software, an open-source, parallelized platform leveraging domain decomposition, high-order polynomials, METIS graph partitioning, and MPI for scalable performance. The proposed methodology addresses key challenges in meshing, supporting high-fidelity simulations for both PMUT transmission and reception phases. Numerical results demonstrate the framework's accuracy, scalability, and efficiency for large PMUT array simulations.

Paola F. Antonietti, Francesco Bonaldi, Ilario Mazzieri

We address the spatial discretization of an evolution problem arising from the coupling of viscoelastic and acoustic wave propagation phenomena by employing a discontinuous Galerkin scheme on polygonal and polyhedral meshes. The coupled nature of the problem is ascribed to suitable transmission conditions imposed at the interface between the solid (elastic) and fluid (acoustic) domains. We state and prove a well-posedness result for the strong formulation of the problem, present a stability analysis for the semi-discrete formulation, and finally prove an a priori $hp$-version error estimate for the resulting formulation in a suitable (mesh-dependent) energy norm. We also discuss the time integration scheme employed to obtain the fully discrete system. The convergence results are validated by numerical experiments carried out in a two-dimensional setting.

Paola F. Antonietti, Michele Botti, Ilario Mazzieri

This work is concerned with the analysis of a space-time finite element discontinuous Galerkin method on polytopal meshes (XT-PolydG) for the numerical discretization of wave propagation in coupled poroelastic-elastic media. The mathematical model consists of the low-frequency Biot's equations in the poroelastic medium and the elastodynamics equation for the elastic one. To realize the coupling, suitable transmission conditions on the interface between the two domains are (weakly) embedded in the formulation. The proposed PolydG discretization in space is then coupled with a dG time integration scheme, resulting in a full space-time dG discretization. We present the stability analysis for both the continuous and the semidiscrete formulations, and we derive error estimates for the semidiscrete formulation in a suitable energy norm. The method is applied to a wide set of numerical test cases to verify the theoretical bounds. Examples of physical interest are also presented to investigate the capability of the proposed method in relevant geophysical scenarios.

Sofi Esterhazy, Felix Schneider, Ilario Mazzieri et al.

Motivated by the need to detect an underground cavity within the procedure of an On-Site-Inspection (OSI), of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization, the aim of this paper is to present results on the comparison of our numerical simulations with an analytic solution. The accurate numerical modeling can facilitate the development of proper analysis techniques to detect the remnants of an underground nuclear test. The larger goal is to help set a rigorous scientific base of OSI and to contribute to bringing the Treaty into force. For our 3D numerical simulations, we use the discontinuous Galerkin Spectral Element Code SPEED jointly developed at MOX (The Laboratory for Modeling and Scientific Computing, Department of Mathematics) and at DICA (Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering) of the Politecnico di Milano.

Marcella Bonazzoli, Gabriele Ciaramella, Ilario Mazzieri

The Unmapped Tent Pitching (UTP) algorithm is a space--time domain decomposition method for the parallel solution of hyperbolic problems. It was originally introduced for the homogeneous one-dimensional wave equation in [Ciaramella, Gander, Mazzieri, 2024]. UTP is inspired by the Mapped Tent Pitching (MTP) algorithm [Gopalakrishnan, Sch{ö}berl, Wintersteiger, 2017], which constructs the solution by iteratively building polytopal space--time subdomains, referred to as tents. In MTP, each physical tent is mapped onto a space--time rectangle, where local problems are solved before being mapped back to the original domain. In contrast, UTP avoids the nonlinear and potentially singular mapping step by computing the solution directly on a physical space--time rectangle that contains the tent, at the expense of redundant computations in the region outside the tent. In this work, we investigate several strategies to extend UTP to heterogeneous media, where the wave propagation speed is piecewise constant over two subregions of the domain. Among the considered approaches, the most efficient in terms of computational time is the one employing space--time subdomains with identical spatial and temporal dimensions in both regions, determined by the maximum propagation speed.