Comparison of indirect boundary element and finite element methods A case study:Shiraz-Esfahan railway tunnel in Iran

Because of the high importance of transportation tunnels,most precise analyses of stress concentration and displacement around them are essential to provide safety of them as much as possible.Recently,various numerical methods such as finite element method(FEM),discrete element method(DEM),finite difference method(FDM)and boundary element method(BEM)have been used extremely in geosciences problems,but among these numerical methods,BEM has been used less than others because the computational algorithm is not so straightforward.This paper suggests the implementation of the indirect boundary element method(IBEM)as a formulation of BEM to analyze displacement around Shiraz-Esfahan railway tunnel in Zagros Mountains southwest of Iran.For this purpose,this tunnel has been modeled numerically using two-dimensional fictitious stress method(TWOFS)algorithm.To validate the results,they were compared with FEM results as a commonly used numerical method.Results of current theoretical study have shown that the presented approach using IBEM is reasonably accurate and can be used for analysis of displacement in geosciences problems.In rock mechanics,for problems with a low ratio of boundary surface to volume,FEM is not very well suited and may be cumbersome,but use of such a proposed IBEM approach can be particularly attractive.

Dynamic soil-tunnel interaction in layered half-space for incident plane SH waves

The dynamic soil-tunnel interaction is studied by indirect boundary element method （IBEM）, using the model of a rigid tunnel in layered half-space, which is simplified to a single soil layer on elastic bedrock, subjected to incident plane SH waves. The accuracy of the results is verified through comparison with the analytical solution. It is shown that soil-tunnel interaction in layered half-space is larger than that in homogeneous half-space and this interaction mechanism is essentially different from that of soil-foundation-superstructure interaction.

An IBEM solution to the scattering of plane SH-waves by a lined tunnel in elastic wedge space

The indirect boundary element method （IBEM） is developed to solve the scattering of plane SH-waves by a lined tunnel in elastic wedge space. According to the theory of single-layer potential, the scattered-wave field can be constructed by applying virtual uniform loads on the surface of lined tunnel and the nearby wedge surface. The densities of virtual loads can be solved by establishing equations through the continuity conditions on the interface and zero-traction conditions on free surfaces. The total wave field is obtained by the superposition of free field and scattered-wave field in elastic wedge space. Numerical results indicate that the IBEM can solve the diffraction of elastic wave in elastic wedge space accurately and effi- ciently. The wave motion feature strongly depends on the wedge angle, the angle of incidence, incident frequency, the location of lined tunnel, and material parameters. The waves interference and amplification effect around the tunnel in wedge space is more significant, causing the dynamic stress concentration factor on rigid tunnel and the displacement amplitude of flexible tunnel up to 50.0 and 17.0, respectively, more than double that of the case of half-space. Hence, considerable attention should be paid to seismic resistant or anti-explosion design of the tunnel built on a slope or hillside.

Dynamic soil-tunnel interaction in layered half-space for incident P-and SV-waves

The dynamic soil-tunnel interaction is studied by the model of a rigid tunnel embedded in layered half-space, which is simplified as a single soil layer on elastic bedrock to the excitation of P- and SV-waves. The indirect boundary element method is used, combined with the Green＇ s function of distributed loads acting on inclined lines. It is shown that the dynamic characteristics of soil-tunnel interaction in layered half-space are different much from that in homoge- neous half-space, and that the mechanism of soil-tunnel interaction is also different much from that of soil-founda- tion-superstructure interaction. For oblique incidence, the tunnel response for in-plane incident SV-waves is com- pletely different from that for incident SH-waves, while the tunnel response for vertically incident SV-wave is very similar to that of vertically incident SH-wave.

Amplification of in-plane seismic ground motion by group cavities in layered half-space (Ⅱ): with saturated poroelastic soil layers

As the continuation study on amplification of in-plane seismic ground motion by underground group cavities in layered half-space, this study extends to the case of poroelastic half-space with dry poroelastic and saturated poroelastic soil layers. The influence of poroelastic layers on the amplification of seismic ground motion is studied both in frequency domain and time domain using indirect boundary element method （IBEM）. It is shown that for the example of a saturated poroelastic site in Tianjin under the excitation of Taft wave and E1 Centro wave, the amplification of seismic ground motion in poroelastic case is slightly smaller than that in the elastic case, and the amplification of PGA （peak ground acceleration） and its PRS （peak response spectrum）.. can be increased up to 38.8% and 64.6%; the predominant period of response spectra in poroelastic case becomes shorter to some extent compared with that in the elastic case. It is suggested that the effect of underground group cavities in poroelastic half-space on design seismic ground motion should be considered.

Amplification of in-plane seismic ground motion by group cavities in layered half-space (Ⅰ)

Amplification of in-plane seismic ground motion by underground group cavities in layered half-space is studied both in frequency domain and time domain by using indirect boundary element method （IBEM）, and the effect of cavity interval and spectrum of incident waves on the amplification are studied by numerical examples. It is shown that there may be large interaction between cavities, and group cavities with certain intervals may have significant amplification to seismic ground motion. The amplification of PGA （peak ground acceleration） and its PRS （peak response spectrum） can be increased up to 45.2% and 84.4%, for an example site in Tianjin, under the excitation of Taft wave and E1 Centro wave; and group cavities may also affect the spectra of the seismic ground motion. It is suggested that the effect of underground group cavities on design seismic ground motion should be considered.

3D Diffraction of obliquely incident SH waves by twin infinitely long cylindrical cavities in layered poroelastic half-space

Abstract This paper studies three-dimensional diffraction of obliquely incident plane SH waves by twin infinitely long cylindrical cavities in layered poroelastic half-space using indirect boundary element method. The approach is validated by comparison with the literature, and the effects of cavity interval, incident frequency, and boundary drainage condition on the diffraction are studied through numerical examples. It is shown that, the interaction between two cavities is significant and surface displacement peaks become large when two cavities are close, and the surface displacement may be significantly amplified by twin cavities, and the influence range with large amplification can be as wide as 40 times of the cavity radius. Surface displacements in dry poroelastic case and saturated poroelastic cases with drained and undrained boundaries are evidently different under certain circumstances, and the differences may be much larger than those in the free-field response.

Scattering of seismic waves by three-dimensional large-scale hill topography simulated by a fast parallel IBEM

To solve seismic wave scattering by a large-scale three-dimensional(3-D) hill topography, a fast parallel indirect boundary element method(IBEM) is developed by proposing a new construction method for the wave field, modifying the generalized minimum residual(GMRES) algorithm and constructing an Open MP plus MPI parallel model. The validations of accuracy and efficiency show that this method can solve 3-D seismic response of a large-scale hill topography for broadband waves, and overcome the weakness of large storage and low efficiency of the traditional IBEM. Based on this new algorithm architecture, taking the broadband scattering of plane SV waves by a large-scale Gaussian-shaped hill of thousands-meters height as an example, the influence of several important parameters is investigated, including the incident frequency, the incident angle and the height-width and length-width ratio of the hill. The numerical results illustrate that the amplification effect on the ground motion by a near-hemispherical hill is more significant than the narrow hill. For low-frequency waves, the scattering effect of the higher hill is more pronounced, and there is only a single peak near the top of the hill. However, for high-frequency waves, rapid spatial variation of displacement amplitude appears on the hill surface.

The scattering of plane P1 wave by a 3-D sedimentary basin in a fluid-saturated poroelastic half-space using IBEM

The indirect boundary element method(IBEM)is applied to investigate the scattering of elastic waves around a 3-D sedimentary basin filled with fluid-saturated poroelastic medium.Based on this method,the free field and scattered field can be solved according to the boundary conditions.And the numerical accuracy has been verified.The effects of parameters on elastic wave scattering are studied,such as boundary condition,incident frequency,incident angle and porosity of medium.Numerical results illustrate that the amplification effect of surface displacement near poroelastic sedimentary basin is notable.In addition,for the case of large porosity the drainage condition has a significant impact on the response amplitude.Due to the fluid exchange at the interface under the drained condition,the displacement amplitude can be much larger than that under the undrained condition in present study.The study can provide a theoretical basis for the anti-seismic design of engineering structures located in sedimentary basin.

Seismic response of tunnel near fault fracture zone under incident SV waves

This study investigated the impact of a non-causative fault on the dynamic response of a nearby lined tunnel under the incidence of plane SV waves using the indirect boundary element method.The effects of several critical parameters,such as the incident frequency,the inclination degree of the fault,the distance between the fault and the tunnel on the hoop stress of the lined inner and outer walls,were explored intensively.The numerical results indicated that the non-causative fault could significantly change the hoop stress distribution of inner and outer surfaces of the tunnels.In general,for the vertically incident seismic waves,when the tunnel was located in the foot wall(under the fault),the hoop stress within the tunnel was significantly greater than that of the tunnels in the non-fault half space,with an amplification factor of up to 117%.The amplification effect became more pronounced as the fault dip angle increased.However,when the tunnel was located in the hanging wall(above the fault),the non-causative fault could produce a significant shielding effect on the dynamic response of the tunnel under high frequency wave incidence,with the reduction of hoop stress being up to 81%.For lowfrequency waves,though,the fault could lead to an increase of the hoop stress of the tunnel of up to 152%.The research results will provide a reference for the seismic design and safety protection of underground structures in non-causative fault sites.

New Multipole Method for 3-D Capacitance Extraction

This paper describes an efficient improvement of the multipole accelerated boundary element method for 3-D capacitance extraction. The overall relations between the positions of 2-D boundary elements are considered instead of only the relations between the center-points of the elements, and a new method of cube partitioning is introduced. Numerical results are presented to demonstrate that the method is accurate and has nearly linear computational growth as O(n), where n is the number of panels/boundary elements. The proposed method is more accurate and much faster than Fastcap.