Beam–solid contact formulation for finite element analysis of pile–soil interaction with arbitrary discretization

This paper presents an embedded beam formulation for discretization independent finite element (FE) analyses of interactions between pile foundations or rock anchors and the surrounding soil in geotechnical and tunneling engineering. Piles are represented by means of finite beam elements embedded within FEs for the soil represented by 3D solid elements. The proposed formulation allows consideration of piles and pile groups with arbitrary orientation independently from the FE discretization of the surrounding soil. The interface behavior between piles and the surrounding soil is represented numerically by means of a contact formulation considering skin friction as well as pile tip resistance. The pile–soil interaction along the pile skin is considered by means of a 3D frictional point‐to‐point contact formulation using the integration points of the beam elements and reference points arbitrarily located within the solid elements as control points. The ability of the proposed embedded pile model to represent groups of piles objected to combined axial and shear loading and their interactions with the surrounding soil is demonstrated by selected benchmark examples. The pile model is applied to the numerical simulation of shield driven tunnel construction in the vicinity of an existing building resting upon pile foundation to demonstrate the performance of the proposed model in complex simulation environments. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Elastoplastic medium for foundation settlements and monotonic soil–structure interaction under combined loadings

Foundation settlements and soil–structure interaction are important problems to structural and geotechnical engineers. This study introduces a novel elastoplastic three‐degree‐of‐freedom medium which models foundations settlements under combined loadings. A soil–structure interaction problem can then be solved by replacing the soil mass with this three‐degree‐of‐freedom elastoplastic medium, thus reducing significantly the size of the problem. The model was developed by extending the classical plasticity concepts to the force‐deformation level. Its ability to predict foundation deformations was evaluated using finite element solutions of a typical shallow foundation problem and was found reasonably accurate while producing significant time savings. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Analysis of soil–pile–structure interaction in a two‐layer ground during earthquakes considering liquefaction

This study is conducted with a numerical method to investigate the seismic behaviour among certain soils, single piles, and a structure. A series of numerical simulations of the seismic behaviour of a single‐pile foundation constructed in a two‐layer ground is carried out. Various sandy soils, namely, dense sand, medium dense sand, reclaimed soil, and loose sand, are employed for the upper layer, while one type of clayey soil is used for the lower layer. The results reveal that when a structure is built in a non‐liquefiable ground, an amplification of the seismic waves is seen on the ground surface and in the upper structure, and large bending moments are generated at the pile heads. When a structure is built in a liquefiable ground, a de‐amplification of the seismic waves is seen on the ground surface and in the upper structure, and large bending moments are generated firstly at the pile heads and then in the lower segment at the boundary between the soil layers when liquefaction takes place. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Cyclic macro‐element for soil–structure interaction: material and geometrical non‐linearities

This paper presents a non‐linear soil–structure interaction (SSI) macro‐element for shallow foundation on cohesive soil. The element describes the behaviour in the near field of the foundation under cyclic loading, reproducing the material non‐linearities of the soil under the foundation (yielding) as well as the geometrical non‐linearities (uplift) at the soil–structure interface. The overall behaviour in the soil and at the interface is reduced to its action on the foundation. The macro‐element consists of a non‐linear joint element, expressed in generalised variables, i.e. in forces applied to the foundation and in the corresponding displacements. Failure is described by the interaction diagram of the ultimate bearing capacity of the foundation under combined loads. Mechanisms of yielding and uplift are modelled through a global, coupled plasticity–uplift model. The cyclic model is dedicated to modelling the dynamic response of structures subjected to seismic action. Thus, it is especially suited to combined loading developed during this kind of motion. Comparisons of cyclic results obtained from the macro‐element and from a FE modelization are shown in order to demonstrate the relevance of the proposed model and its predictive ability. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A macro‐element for a circular foundation to simulate 3D soil–structure interaction

This paper presents a non‐linear interface element to compute soil–structure interaction (SSI) based on the macro‐element concept. The particularity of this approach lies in the fact that the foundation is supposed to be infinitely rigid and its movement is entirely described by a system of global variables (forces and displacements) defined in the foundation's centre. The non‐linear behaviour of the soil is reproduced using the classical theory of plasticity. Failure is described by the interaction diagram of the ultimate bearing capacity of the foundation under combined loads. The macro‐element is appropriate for modelling the cyclic or dynamic response of structures subjected to seismic action. More specifically, the element is able to simulate the behaviour of a circular rigid shallow foundation considering the plasticity of the soil under monotonic static or cyclic loading applied in three directions. It is implemented into FedeasLab, a finite element Matlab toolbox. Comparisons with experimental monotonic static and cyclic results show the good performance of the approach. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A stepwise damping‐solvent extraction method for large‐scale dynamic soil–structure interaction analysis in time domain

Time‐domain analysis of dynamic soil–structure interaction based on the substructure method plays an increasing role in practical applications as compared with the frequency‐domain analysis. Efficient and accurate modelling of the unbounded soil or rock medium has been a key issue in such an analysis. This paper presents a subregional stepwise damping‐solvent extraction formulation for solving large‐scale dynamic soil–structure problems in the time domain. Accuracy and efficiency of the formulation are evaluated in detail for a classical problem involving a rigid strip foundation embedded in a half‐space. A practical large‐scale soil–structure interaction problem, which represents a high concrete gravity dam subjected to seismic load, is then analysed using the proposed method. Various responses of the dam, including time histories of the crest displacement and acceleration and contours of the peak principal stresses within the dam body, are presented. Comparisons are also made between these results with those obtained using other models for the unbounded medium. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An efficient finite–discrete element method for quasi‐static nonlinear soil–structure interaction problems

An efficient finite–discrete element method applicable for the analysis of quasi‐static nonlinear soil–structure interaction problems involving large deformations in three‐dimensional space was presented in this paper. The present method differs from previous approaches in that the use of very fine mesh and small time steps was not needed to stabilize the calculation. The domain involving the large displacement was modeled using discrete elements, whereas the rest of the domain was modeled using finite elements. Forces acting on the discrete and finite elements were related by introducing interface elements at the boundary of the two domains. To improve the stability of the developed method, we used explicit time integration with different damping schemes applied to each domain to relax the system and to reach stability condition. With appropriate damping schemes, a relatively coarse finite element mesh can be used, resulting in significant savings in the computation time. The proposed algorithm was validated using three different benchmark problems, and the numerical results were compared with existing analytical and numerical solutions. The algorithm performance in solving practical soil–structure interaction problems was also investigated by simulating a large‐scale soft ground tunneling problem involving soil loss near an existing lining. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Dynamic soil–structure interaction analysis using Lanczos vectors with adaptive time integration technique

An analytical procedure to obtain the response of soil–structure interaction problems, time domain is described. The procedure makes use of large domain for descritization along with co-ordinate transformation using Lanczos vectors. The responses are obtained in time domain using an adaptive direct integration method. The scheme has the ability to estimate errors due to temporal discretization as well as co-ordinate transformation. The procedure has been applied to half-space problems and non-convex domains for validation of the scheme, and the scheme obeys causality condition in both the situations. The present method has all the advantages of time domain scheme which is local both in space and time with small computational effort. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Robust partitioned block preconditioners for large‐scale geotechnical applications with soil–structure interactions

Soil–structure interaction problems are commonly encountered in geotechnical practice and remarkably characterized with significant material stiffness contrast. When solving the soil–structure interaction problems, the employed Krylov subspace iterative method may converge slowly or even fail, indicating that the adopted preconditioning method may not suit for such problems. The inexact block diagonal preconditioners proposed recently have been shown effective for the soil–structure interaction problems; however, they haven't been exploited to full capabilities. By using the same partition strategy according to the structure elements and soil elements, the partitioned block symmetric successive over‐relaxation preconditioners or partitioned block constraint preconditioners are proposed. Based on two pile‐group foundation problems and a tunnel problem, the proposed preconditioners are evaluated and compared with the available preconditioners for the consolidation analysis and the drained analysis, respectively. In spite of one additional solve associated with the structure block and multiplications with off‐diagonal blocks in the preconditioning step, numerical results reveal that the proposed preconditioners obviously possess better performance than the recently developed inexact block preconditioners. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Study of the soil–atmosphere moisture exchanges through convective drying tests in non‐isothermal conditions

This paper deals with the moisture exchanges occurring between soils and the surrounding atmosphere. Convective drying tests are performed on Awans silts at different drying temperatures and air relative humidities in order to reproduce the natural drying conditions. The experiments improve the understanding of the vapour transfers kinetics between the soil samples and the atmosphere. The experimental results are analysed assuming that the transfers take place in a boundary layer existing at the surface of the porous medium. The influence of the thermal conditions on the evaporation is also taken into account. In our model, coupled vapour and energy exchanges are controlled by mass and heat transfer coefficients characterizing the boundary layer. These coefficients are determined from the drying experiments. The modelling of the drying tests in non‐isothermal conditions is performed in order to validate the formulation of the vapour and heat exchanges. The numerical results present a good agreement with the kinetic of the materials desaturation determined during the tests. The analysis of the moisture transport mechanisms into the sample and at the boundary shows that at the beginning of the test, the drying is first achieved by the transport of moisture in its liquid form and its evaporation at the sample outer boundary in contact with the atmosphere. In a second step, vapour diffusion becomes predominant into the sample and it corresponds to the most important decrease of relative humidity. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A NON-LINEAR SEISMIC RESPONSE ANALYSIS METHOD FOR SATURATED SOIL–STRUCTURE SYSTEM WITH ABSORBING BOUNDARY

A non-linear seismic response analysis method for 2-D saturated soil–structure system with an absorbing boundary is presented. According to the 3-D strain space multimechanism model for the cyclic mobility of sandy soil, a constitutive expression for the plane strain condition is first given. Next, based on Biot's two-phase mixture theory, the finite element equations of motion for a saturated soil–structure system with an absorbing boundary during earthquake loadings are derived. A simulation of the shaking table test is performed by applying the proposed constitutive model. The effectiveness of the absorbing boundary is examined for the 2-D non-linear finite element models subjected to random inputs. Finally, a numerical seismic response analysis for a typical saturated soil–structure system is performed as an application of the proposed method.     

A SPH framework for dynamic interaction between soil and rigid body system with hybrid contact method

A smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) framework for three-dimensional dynamic soil-multibody interaction modeling is presented, where both soils and rigid bodies are discretized using SPH particles. In the framework, soils are modeled using the Drucker-Prager model, while rigid bodies are considered with a multibody dynamics solver. A hybrid contact method suitable for three-dimensional simulations is developed to model the soil-body and body-body frictionless and frictional contacts, where contact forces are calculated based on ideal plastic collision and the unit normal/tangential vectors of the actual surface. Owing to its simplicity in contact detection and accuracy in contact force calculation, the hybrid contact method can be easily incorporated into SPH. Furthermore, graphics processing unit (GPU) parallelization is utilized to improve efficiency. The presented numerical framework and the hybrid contact method are validated using several examples. Numerical results are compared with analytical solutions and results from the literature. Furthermore, two three-dimensional simulations involving dynamic soil-multibody interaction are included to demonstrate the application.     

Importance of footing–soil separation on dynamic stiffness of piled embedded footings

Different phenomena such as soil consolidation, erosion, and scour beneath an embedded footing supported on piles may lead to loss of contact between soil and the pile cap underside. The importance of this separation on the dynamic stiffness and damping of the foundation is assessed in this work. To this end, a numerical parametric analysis in the frequency domain is performed using a rigorous three‐dimensional elastodynamic boundary element–finite element coupling scheme. Dimensionless plots relating dynamic stiffness functions computed with and without separation effects are presented for different pile–soil configurations. Vertical, horizontal and rocking modes of oscillation are analyzed for a wide range of dimensionless frequencies. It is shown that the importance of separation is negligible for frequencies below those for which dynamic pile group effects start to become apparent. Redistribution of stiffness contributions between piles and footing is also addressed. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A non‐linear coupled finite element–boundary element model for the prediction of vibrations due to vibratory and impact pile driving

This paper presents a non‐linear coupled finite element–boundary element approach for the prediction of free field vibrations due to vibratory and impact pile driving. Both the non‐linear constitutive behavior of the soil in the vicinity of the pile and the dynamic interaction between the pile and the soil are accounted for. A subdomain approach is used, defining a generalized structure consisting of the pile and a bounded region of soil around the pile, and an unbounded exterior linear soil domain. The soil around the pile may exhibit non‐linear constitutive behavior and is modelled with a time‐domain finite element method. The dynamic stiffness matrix of the exterior unbounded soil domain is calculated using a boundary element formulation in the frequency domain based on a limited number of modes defined on the interface between the generalized structure and the unbounded soil. The soil–structure interaction forces are evaluated as a convolution of the displacement history and the soil flexibility matrices, which are obtained by an inverse Fourier transformation from the frequency to the time domain. This results in a hybrid frequency–time domain formulation of the non‐linear dynamic soil–structure interaction problem, which is solved in the time domain using Newmark's time integration method; the interaction force time history is evaluated using the θ‐scheme in order to obtain stable solutions. The proposed hybrid formulation is validated for linear problems of vibratory and impact pile driving, showing very good agreement with the results obtained with a frequency‐domain solution. Linear predictions, however, overestimate the free field peak particle velocities as observed in reported field experiments during vibratory and impact pile driving at comparable levels of the transferred energy. This is mainly due to energy dissipation related to plastic deformations in the soil around the pile. Ground vibrations due to vibratory and impact pile driving are, therefore, also computed with a non‐linear model where the soil is modelled as an isotropic elastic, perfectly plastic solid, which yields according to the Drucker–Prager failure criterion. This results in lower predicted free field vibrations with respect to linear predictions, which are also in much better agreement with experimental results recorded during vibratory and impact pile driving. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Frictional contact of laminated elastic half‐spaces allowing interface cavities. Part 1: Analytical treatment

The paper deals with the plane problem on frictional contact of stratified elastic half‐spaces provided discontinuity of their direct touch. Imperfectness of contact of the bodies is assumed to be caused by surface unevenness of their surface layers. The problem is formulated within the framework of the homogenized model with microlocal parameters. Using the method of complex potentials in combination with the method of interface gaps the problem is reduced to a singular integral equation on the function of interface gap height. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Embedded beam element with interaction surface for lateral loading of piles

This paper presents a numerical formulation of a three dimensional embedded beam element for the modeling of piles, which incorporates an explicit interaction surface between soil and pile. The formulation is herein implemented for lateral loading of piles but is able to represent soil–pile interaction phenomena in a general manner for different types of loading conditions or ground movements. The model assumes perfect adherence between beam and soil along the interaction surface. The paper presents a comparison of the results obtained by means of the present formulation and by means of a previously formulated embedded pile element without interaction surface, as well as reference semi‐analytical solutions and a fully 3D finite element (FE) model. It is seen that the proposed embedded element provides a better convergence behavior than a previously formulated embedded element and is able to reproduce key features of a full 3D FE model. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Coupled bonded particle and lattice Boltzmann method for modelling fluid–solid interaction

This paper presents a two‐dimensional coupled bonded particle and lattice Boltzmann method (BPLBM) developed to simulate the fluid–solid interactions in geomechanics. In this new technique, the bonded particle model is employed to describe the inter‐particle movement and forces, and the bond between a pair of contacting particles is assumed to be broken when the tensile force or tangential force reaches a certain critical value. As a result the fracture process can be delineated based on the present model for the solid phase comprising particles, such as rocks and cohesive soils. In the meantime, the fluid phase is modelled by using the LBM, and the immersed moving boundary scheme is utilized to characterize the fluid–solid interactions. Based on the novel technique case studies have been conducted, which show that the coupled BPLBM enjoys substantially improved accuracy and enlarged range of applicability in characterizing the mechanics responses of the fluid–solid systems. Indeed such a new technique is promising for a wide range of application in soil erosion in Geotechnical Engineering, sand production phenomenon in Petroleum Engineering, fracture flow in Mining Engineering and fracture process in a variety of engineering disciplines. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Impedances of rigid cylindrical foundations embedded in transversely isotropic soils

A complete formulation and implementation for assessment of the response to dynamic loads of cylindrical rigid structures embedded in transversely isotropic elastic half‐spaces is presented. The analysis is performed in the frequency domain and the steady‐state structure response is obtained. The method is based on a non‐singular version of the indirect boundary element method which uses influence functions, instead of Green's functions, as fundamental solutions. These influence functions are the response of an elastic half‐space to distributed, internally applied loads. The proposed method imposes full bonding contact between the foundation and the surrounding soil. Numerical results for displacement (vertical and horizontal) and rotation (twisting and rocking) impedances, showing the influence of the soil anisotropy, are presented. Results for the soil–structure interface tractions and for the displacement field throughout the half‐space are also shown. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A novel computational approach for large deformation and post‐failure analyses of segmental retaining wall systems

Segmental retaining wall (SRW) systems are commonly used in geotechnical practice to stabilize cut and fill slopes. Because of their flexibility, these systems can tolerate minor movements and settlements without incurring damage or crack. Despite these advantages, very few numerical studies of large deformations and post‐failure behavior of SRW systems are found in the current literature. Traditional numerical methods, such as the finite element method, suffer from mesh entanglement, thus are unable to simulate large deformations and flexible behavior of retaining wall blocks in SRW systems. To overcome the above limitations, a novel computational framework based on the smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) method was developed to simulate large deformations and post‐failure behavior of soils and retaining wall blocks in SRW systems. The proposed numerical framework is a hybrid continuum/discontinuum approach that can model soil as an elasto‐plastic material and retaining wall blocks as independent rigid bodies associated with both translational and rotational degrees of freedom. A new contact model is proposed within the SPH framework to simulate the interaction between the soil and the blocks and between the blocks. As an application of the proposed numerical method, a two‐dimensional simulation of an SRW collapse was simulated and compared to experimental results conducted under the same conditions. The results showed that the proposed computational approach provided satisfactory agreement with the experiment. This suggests that the new framework is a promising numerical approach to model SRW systems. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.