Fast and accurate front propagation for simulation of geological folds

Abstract

Front propagations described by static Hamilton-Jacobi equations can be used to simulate folded geological structures. Simulations of geological folds are a key ingredient in the Compound Earth Simulator (CES), an industrial software tool used in the exploration of oil and gas. In this thesis, local approximation techniques are investigated with respect to accuracy and efficiency. Several novel algorithms are also introduced, of which some are accelerated by parallel implementations on both multicore CPUs and Graphic Processing Units. These algorithms are able to simulate folds at a fraction of the time needed by the CES industry code, while retaining the same level of accuracy. Complicated tasks that previously needed several minutes to be computed can now be performed in just a matter of a few seconds, thus significantly improving the CES user experience.