Application of Frictional Contact in Geotechnical Engineering

Abstract

Soil-structure interaction is traditionally simplified to prescribed boundary conditions or modeled by joint elements. Both of these approaches are limited to small and continuous relative displacements at the interface. The use of contact constraints opens up a fresh range of possibilities for geotechnical analysis, especially for cases involving large interfacial deformation. This paper demonstrates the application of computational contact mechanics in geotechnical engineering. It first outlines a general description of kinematic constraints for frictional contact and the associated numerical algorithms. A number of classical geotechnical problems are then analyzed using finite-element contact methods. These problems include a strip footing under eccentric and inclined loads and a cone penetration test. It is shown that the finite-element method with frictional contact is indeed very useful in geotechnical analysis, and can provide solutions to problems that are otherwise very difficult to analyze.

Numerical modeling and neural networks to identify model parameters from piezocone tests: I. FEM analysis of penetration in two‐phase continuum

“…In the model, the Lagrange multipliers method is used to enforce contact constraints. Although the algorithm adds additional degrees of freedom increasing the size of the problem, it satisfies the contact constraints in an exact manner 49.…”

A numerical hydro-geotechnical model for marine gravity structures

“…The normal contact constraint can be represented as [44]: g n ¼ 0; when r 0 n > 0; g n > 0; when r 0 n ¼ 0; g n r 0…”

Soil-Framed Structure Interaction Analysis - A New Interface Element

“…This element was then used for interaction analysis of soil and strip footing. Large shear deformation between soil and strip foundation was studied by Sheng et al (2007). An elastic strip footing resting Latin A m erican Journal of Solids and Struc tures 12 (2015) 226-249 on homogeneous single-layered soil was subjected to quasi-static inclined and eccentric load.…”

“…The selected eight nodded quadrilateral element, Figure 1, from serendipity family of finite elements is the most well-known one, utilized for soil simulation in earlier research works under plane strain condition. Many researchers have used this element for soil and solid material modeling in geotechnical and soil-structure interaction analyses like Noorzaei et al (1995), Karabatakis and Hatzigogos (2002), Sheng et al (2007) and Agrawal and Hora (2010). This element with two degrees of freedom per node can suitably idealize the translational moves of the soil body whose stiffness matrix is generated within the program in conventional way.…”