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Refined h-adaptive finite element procedure for large deformation geotechnical problems

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Abstract

Adaptive finite element procedures automatically refine, coarsen, or relocate elements in a finite element mesh to obtain a solution with a specified accuracy. Although a significant amount of research has been devoted to adaptive finite element analysis, this method has not been widely applied to nonlinear geotechnical problems due to their complexity. In this paper, the h-adaptive finite element technique is employed to solve some complex geotechnical problems involving material nonlinearity and large deformations. The key components of h-adaptivity including robust mesh generation algorithms, error estimators and remapping procedures are discussed. This paper includes a brief literature review as well as formulation and implementation details of the h-adaptive technique. Finally, the method is used to solve some classical geotechnical problems and results are provided to illustrate the performance of the method.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Geotechnical and Materials Modeling, The University of Newcastle, University Drive, Callaghan, NSW, 2308, Australia

    Mina Kardani, Majidreza Nazem, Andrew J. Abbo, Daichao Sheng & Scott W. Sloan

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  1. Mina Kardani
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  2. Majidreza Nazem
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  3. Andrew J. Abbo
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  4. Daichao Sheng
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  5. Scott W. Sloan
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Correspondence to Mina Kardani.

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Kardani, M., Nazem, M., Abbo, A.J. et al. Refined h-adaptive finite element procedure for large deformation geotechnical problems. Comput Mech 49, 21–33 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00466-011-0624-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00466-011-0624-3

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