Large scale simulation of wave propagation in soils interacting with structures using FEM and SBFEM

This paper applies a parallel algorithm for a coupled Finite Element/Scaled Boundary Element (FEM/SBFEM)-approach to study soil-structure-interaction problems. The application code is designed to run on clusters of computers, and it enables the analysis of large-scale problems. A crucial point of the approach is that the SBFEM fulfills the radiation condition. Hence, the hybrid numerical approach is well suited for such problems where wave propagation to infinity in an unbounded domain must be considered. The main focus of the paper is to show the applicability of the numerical implementation on large scale problems. First the coupled FEM/SBFEM approach is validated by comparing the numerical results with a semi-analytical solution for a settlement problem. Then the implemented algorithm is applied to study the dynamical behavior of founded wind energy plants under time dependent loading. © 2011 IMACS.Jose E. Roman and Enrique S. Quintana-Orti were partially supported by the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion under grants TIN2009-07519, and TIN2008-06570-C04-01, respectively.Schauer, M.; Langer, S.; Román Moltó, JE.; Quintana-Orti, E. (2011). Large scale simulation of wave propagation in soils interacting with structures using FEM and SBFEM. Journal of Computational Acoustics. 19(1):75-93. doi:10.1142/S0218396X110043167593191H. Antes and C. Spyrakos, Computer Analysis and Design of Earthquake Resistant Structures, eds. D. E. Beskos and S. A. Anagnotopoulos (Computational Mechanics Publications, Southampton, 1997) p. 271.Astley, R. J. (2000). Infinite elements for wave problems: a review of current formulations and an assessment of accuracy. International Journal for Numerical Methods in Engineering, 49(7), 951-976. doi:10.1002/1097-0207(20001110)49:73.0.co;2-tBenner, P., Byers, R., Quintana-Ortı́, E. S., & Quintana-Ortı́, G. (2000). Solving algebraic Riccati equations on parallel computers using Newton’s method with exact line search. Parallel Computing, 26(10), 1345-1368. doi:10.1016/s0167-8191(00)00012-0Engquist, B., & Majda, A. (1977). Absorbing boundary conditions for the numerical simulation of waves. Mathematics of Computation, 31(139), 629-629. doi:10.1090/s0025-5718-1977-0436612-4Hilber, H. M., Hughes, T. J. R., & Taylor, R. L. (1977). Improved numerical dissipation for time integration algorithms in structural dynamics. Earthquake Engineering & Structural Dynamics, 5(3), 283-292. doi:10.1002/eqe.4290050306Kleinman, D. (1968). On an iterative technique for Riccati equation computations. IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, 13(1), 114-115. doi:10.1109/tac.1968.1098829LEHMANN, L., LANGER, S., & CLASEN, D. (2006). SCALED BOUNDARY FINITE ELEMENT METHOD FOR ACOUSTICS. Journal of Computational Acoustics, 14(04), 489-506. doi:10.1142/s0218396x06003141Liao, Z. P., & Wong, H. L. (1984). A transmitting boundary for the numerical simulation of elastic wave propagation. International Journal of Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering, 3(4), 174-183. doi:10.1016/0261-7277(84)90033-0ROBERTS, J. D. (1980). Linear model reduction and solution of the algebraic Riccati equation by use of the sign function†. International Journal of Control, 32(4), 677-687. doi:10.1080/0020717800892288