Spectral elements and field separation for an acoustic fluid subject to cavitation

Spectral elements based on Legendre polynomials are used to improve an existing finite-element method for simulating a highly nonlinear field phenomenon: fluid cavitation in an underwater-shock environment. Further improvement is provided by separation of the total field into its equilibrium, incident, and scattered components. These enhancements promise to make the finite-element method suitable for practical, three-dimensional engineering computations.