Financiado para publicación en acceso aberto: Universidade da Coruña/CISUG[Abstract] The time-harmonic propagation of elastic waves in layered media is simulated numerically by means of a modal-based Partition of Unity Finite Element Method (PUFEM). Instead of using the standard plane waves or the Bessel solutions of the Helmholtz equation to design the discretization basis, the proposed modal-based PUFEM explicitly uses the tensor-product expressions of the eigenmodes (the so-called Love and interior modes) of a spectral elastic transverse problem, which fulfil the coupling conditions among layers. This modal-based PUFEM approach does not introduce quadrature errors since the coefficients of the discrete matrices are computed in closed-form. A preliminary analysis of the high condition number suffered by the proposed method is also analyzed in terms of the mesh size and the number of eigenmodes involved in the discretization. The numerical methodology is validated through a number of test scenarios, where the reliability of the proposed PUFEM method is discussed by considering different modal basis and source terms. Finally, some indicators are introduced to select a convenient discrete PUFEM basis taking into account the observability of cracks located on a coupling boundary between two adjacent layers.This work has been supported by Xunta de Galicia project “Numerical simulation of high-frequency hydro-acoustic problems in coastal environments - SIMNUMAR” (EM2013/052), co-funded with European Regional Development Funds (ERDF). Moreover, the second and fifth authors have been supported by MICINN projects MTM2014-52876-R, MTM2017-82724-R, PID2019-108584RB-I00, and also by ED431C 2018/33 - M2NICA (Xunta de Galicia & ERDF) and ED431G 2019/01 - CITIC (Xunta de Galicia & ERDF). Additionally, the third author has been supported by Junta de Castilla y León under projects VA024P17 and VA105G18, co-financed by ERDF funds. This work has been funded for open access charge by Universidade da Coruña/CISUGXunta de Galicia; EM2013/052Xunta de Galicia; ED431C 2018/33Xunta de Galicia; ED431G 2019/01Junta de Castilla y León; VA024P17Junta de Castilla y León; VA105G1
