Extension of ALE method in large deformation analysis of saturated soil under earthquake loading

This article develops an Arbitrary Lagrangian Eulerian (ALE) finite element program for liquefaction dynamic analysis of saturated sand based on the updated Lagrange finite element program in U-P form. Based on the operator splitting technique, this method adopts the displacements of boundary points...
Ausführliche Beschreibung

This article develops an Arbitrary Lagrangian Eulerian (ALE) finite element program for liquefaction dynamic analysis of saturated sand based on the updated Lagrange finite element program in U-P form. Based on the operator splitting technique, this method adopts the displacements of boundary points and Radial Basis Function (RBF) method to optimize the mesh, and employs super-convergence elements patch and Radial Basis Function (RBF) method to reconstruct variable fields and project variables between old and new configurations. The analytical solutions and numerical solutions of one-dimension consolidation are compared to verify the accuracy of the ALE method. Three typical dynamic liquefaction problems of saturated sand are implemented to measure the applicability of UL method and ALE method. The results show that both methods can provide similar results in the case of small earthquakes. Under strong earthquakes, the UL method fails for large-scale or local mesh distortion, while the proposed ALE can still maintain the health of the mesh and provide satisfactory results. Ausführliche Beschreibung