Mesh-free method for soil-water coupled problem within finite strain and its numerical validity

Abstract

A formulation of the Element-Free Galerkin Method (EFG method), i.e., one of the mesh-free/meshless methods developed in the field of computational mechanics for solving partial differential equations, is furnished for consolidation within finite strain and its validity for application to soil-water coupled problems is examined through a numerical analysis. The numerical strategy is constructed to solve a set of governing equations, e.g., the equilibrium for the nominal stress rate and the continuity of pore water, and the numerical discretization of the weak form of the governing equations leads to an updated Lagrangian scheme. The accuracy of the proposed numerical strategy is examined through an analysis of unconfined compression tests and simple shear tests under undrained and plane strain conditions through a comparison of stress paths integrated directly from the Cam-clay model within the framework of finite strain. It is also revealed that the particular type of weight function to be adopted in the moving least-squares (MLS) approximation, even in the same order, can determine the resultant shape functions of the EFG method for both the displacement and the pore water pressure field such that they are smoother than those of the usual FEM. The functions are advantageous in that they avoid spatial instability in the numerical solutions for pore water pressure under undrained conditions appearing in saturated soil column tests, where the shape function of the pore water pressure in the conventional FEM computation is adopted as a lower order than that of the displacement to remedy this type of numerical difficulty. To emphasize the applicability and the feasibility of the mesh-free computation, the consolidation phenomena are demonstrated in the analysis of a punch problem for a soft soil foundation which has stress singularity under both ends of a rigid loading platen for the same problem which Yatomi et al. (1989) solved with FEM.