A facile method to realize perfectly matched layers for elastic waves

•The design method of PMLs is proposed based on transformation elastodynamics.•The PML can be easily realized by functionally graded viscoelastic materials.•Numerical simulations are performed to validate the performance of the PMLs.

In perfectly matched layer (PML) technique, an artificial layer is introduced in the simulation of wave propagation as a boundary condition which absorbs all incident waves without any reflection. Such a layer is generally thought to be unrealizable due to its complicated material formulation. In this paper, on the basis of transformation elastodynamics and complex coordinate transformation, a novel method is proposed to design PMLs for elastic waves. By applying the conformal transformation technique, the proposed PML is formulated in terms of conventional constitutive parameters and then can be easily realized by functionally graded viscoelastic materials. We perform numerical simulations to validate the material realization and performance of this PML.