An iterative pressure‐stabilized fractional step algorithm in saturated soil dynamics

This paper presents an iterative, incremental pressure‐stabilized fractional step algorithm for coupled hydro‐mechanical problems with mixed formulations of the displacement–pressure ( u –p) model in saturated soil dynamics that allows the use of finite elements with equal low order of interpolation approximation of u and p. In comparison with the original fractional step algorithm, the distinct features of the proposed algorithm lie in its enhanced stability owing to the introduction of both an iteration procedure and a finite increment calculus (FIC) process into the algorithm. The introduction of the iterative procedure makes the velocity term satisfy the momentum conservation equation in an implicit sense and allows much larger time step sizes to be used than those limited in existing explicit and semi‐implicit versions of the algorithm. The introduction of the FIC process removes the dependence of the stability of the proposed algorithm on the time step size, as a result it allows to using the incremental version of the algorithm and evades the minimum time step size requirement presented in the existing versions of the fractional step algorithm that restricts the application of the algorithm to saturated soil dynamics problems with high frequencies. Numerical experiments demonstrate the effectiveness and improved performance of the proposed iterative pressure‐stabilized fractional step algorithm. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.