Boundary element method formulation for reinforced porous material

Author(s)

Wilson Wesley Wutzow

• Document type: Doctoral Thesis
• Press: São Carlos.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Escola de Engenharia de São Carlos (EESC/SBD)
• Defense date: 2008-05-16

Examining board members

Humberto Breves Coda; Ahmed Benallal; Jose Elias Laier; Euclides de Mesquita Neto; Nicolas Schmitt

• Advisor: Wilson Sergio Venturini

Abstract

In this work a nonlinear formulation of the boundary element method (BEM) is proposed to deal with saturated and unsaturated poro-elasto-plastic 2D reinforced domains. To model reinforced porous domains a BEM/FEM (Finite Element Method) modified coupling technique is employed. The coupling is made by using the least square method to regularize the displacement and traction distributions along the interfaces. Analytical expressions have been derived for all boundary and domain integrals required for the formulation. The Biot formulation is used for the description of the saturated porous environments and an energetic consistent formulation based on work of Coussy is adopted for its extension to the framework of unsaturated porous media. In this case, the capillar pressure and the interface energy are taken into account. The Van Genuchten model is used for the determination of saturation level in non-saturated poro-elasto-plastic problems. The Drucker-Prager modified model if used for the saturated poro-elasto-plastic problems and the modified Cam-Clay model for the representation of non-saturated poro-elasto-plastic problems. For the saturated case, the consistent tangent operator is derived and employed inside a Newton procedure to solve non-linear problems. Numerical solutions are presented to validate the proposed models. (AU)