Explicitly coupled consolidation analysis using piecewise constant pressure

Abstract

The paper describes an explicit coupling procedure for efficient consolidation analysis. Each time step is divided into a flow step followed by a drained mechanical step. The flow step keeps the total mean stress increment fixed and solves a diffusion problem based on piecewise constant pressure data. The procedure can be added to purely mechanical finite element codes and does not require a fully coupled element type. Details on discretization and implementation are provided as well as results of numerical tests.