Numerical manifold method for thermo-mechanical coupling simulation of fractured rock mass

As a calculation method based on the Galerkin variation,the numerical manifold method(NMM)adopts a double covering system,which can easily deal with discontinuous deformation problems and has a high calculation accuracy.Aiming at the thermo-mechanical(TM)coupling problem of fractured rock masses,this study uses the NMM to simulate the processes of crack initiation and propagation in a rock mass under the influence of temperature field,deduces related system equations,and proposes a penalty function method to deal with boundary conditions.Numerical examples are employed to confirm the effectiveness and high accuracy of this method.By the thermal stress analysis of a thick-walled cylinder(TWC),the simulation of cracking in the TWC under heating and cooling conditions,and the simulation of thermal cracking of the SwedishÄspöPillar Stability Experiment(APSE)rock column,the thermal stress,and TM coupling are obtained.The numerical simulation results are in good agreement with the test data and other numerical results,thus verifying the effectiveness of the NMM in dealing with thermal stress and crack propagation problems of fractured rock masses.

2D numerical manifold method based on quartic uniform B-spline interpolation and its application in thin plate bending

A new numerical manifold （NMM） method is derived on the basis of quartic uniform B-spline interpolation. The analysis shows that the new interpolation function possesses higher-order continuity and polynomial consistency compared with the conven- tional NMM. The stiffness matrix of the new element is well-conditioned. The proposed method is applied for the numerical example of thin plate bending. Based on the prin- ciple of minimum potential energy, the manifold matrices and equilibrium equation are deduced. Numerical results reveal that the NMM has high interpolation accuracy and rapid convergence for the global cover function and its higher-order partial derivatives.

Numerical manifold method modeling of coupled processes in fractured geological media at multiple scales

The greatest challenges of rigorously modeling coupled hydro-mechanical(HM)processes in fractured geological media at different scales are associated with computational geometry.These challenges include dynamic shearing and opening of intersecting fractures at discrete fracture scales as a result of coupled processes,and contact alteration along rough fracture surfaces that triggers structural and physical changes of fractures at micro-asperity scale.In this paper,these challenges are tackled by developing a comprehensive modeling approach for coupled processes in fractured geological media based on numerical manifold method(NMM)at multiple scales.Based on their distinct geometric features,fractures are categorized into three different scales:dominant fracture,discrete fracture,and discontinuum asperity scales.Here the scale is relative,that of the fracture relative to that of the research interest or domain.Different geometric representations of fractures at different scales are used,and different governing equations and constitutive relationships are applied.For dominant fractures,a finite thickness zone model is developed to treat a fracture as a porous nonlinear domain.Nonlinear fracture mechanical behavior is accurately modeled with an implicit approach based on strain energy.For discrete fractures,a zero-dimensional model was developed for analyzing fluid flow and mechanics in fractures that are geometrically treated as boundaries of the rock matrix.With the zero-dimensional model,these fractures can be modeled with arbitrary orientations and intersections.They can be fluid conduits or seals,and can be open,bonded or sliding.For the discontinuum asperity scale,the geometry of rough fracture surfaces is explicitly represented and contacts involving dynamic alteration of contacts among asperities are rigorously calculated.Using this approach,fracture alteration caused by deformation,re-arrangement and sliding of rough surfaces can be captured.Our comprehensive model is able to handle the computational challenges with accurate representation of intersections and shearing of fractures at the discrete fracture scale and rigorously treats contacts along rough fracture surfaces at the discontinuum asperity scale.With future development of three-dimensional(3D)geometric representation of discrete fracture networks in porous rock and contacts among multi-body systems,this model is promising as a basis of 3D fully coupled analysis of fractures at multiple scales,for advancing understanding and optimizing energy recovery and storage in fractured geological media.

Searching for critical slip surfaces of slopes using stress fields by numerical manifold method

This study first reviews the numerical manifold method(NMM)which possesses some advantages over the traditional limit equilibrium methods(LEMs)in calculating the factors of safety(Fs)of the slopes.Then,with regard to a trial slip surface(TSS),associated stress fields reproduced by NMM as well as the enhanced limit equilibrium method are combined to compute Fs.In order to search for the potential critical slip surface(CSS),the MAX-MIN ant colony optimization algorithm(MMACOA),one of the best performing algorithms for some optimization problems,is adopted.Procedures to obtain Fs in conjunction with the potential CSS are described.Finally,the proposed numerical model and traditional methods are compared with stability analysis of three typical slopes.The numerical results show that Fs and CSSs of the slopes can be accurately calculated with the proposed model.

A generalized cover renewal strategy for multiple crack propagation in two-dimensional numerical manifold method

Partition of unity based numerical manifold method can solve continuous and discontinuous problems in a unified framework with a two-cover system,i.e.,the mathematical cover and physical cover.However,renewal of the topology of the two-cover system poses a challenge for multiple crack propagation problems and there are few references.In this study,a robust and efficient strategy is proposed to update the cover system of the numerical manifold method in simulation of multiple crack propagation problems.The proposed algorithm updates the cover system with a bottom-up process:1)identification of fractured manifold elements according to the previous and latest crack tip position;and 2)local topological update of the manifold elements,physical patches,block boundary loops,and non-persistent joint loops according to the scenario classification of the propagating crack.The proposed crack tracking strategy and classification of the renewal cases promote a robust and efficient cover renewal algorithm for multiple crack propagation analysis.Three crack propagation examples show that the proposed algorithm performs well in updating the cover system.This cover renewal methodology can be extended for numerical manifold method with polygonal mathematical covers.

Modeling rock failure using the numerical manifold method followed bythe discontinuous deformation analysis

A complete rock failure process usually involves opening/sliding of preexisting discontinuities as well as frac- turing in intact rock bridges to form persistent failure sur- faces and subsequent motions of the generated rock blocks. The recently developed numerical manifold method （NMM） has potential for modelling such a complete failure process. However, the NMM suffers one limitation, i.e., unexpected material domain area change occurs in rotation modelling. This problem can not be easily solved because the rigid body rotation is not represented explicitly in the NMM. The discontinuous deformation analysis （DDA） is specially de- veloped for modelling discrete block systems. The rotation- induced material area change in the DDA modelling can be avoided conveniently because the rigid body rotation is represented in an explicit form. In this paper, a transition technique is proposed and implemented to convert a NMMmodelling to a DDA modelling so as to simulate a complete rock failure process entirely by means of the two methods, in which the NMM is adopted to model the early fracturing as well as the transition from continua to discontinua, while the DDA is adopted to model the subsequent motion of the generated rock blocks. Such a numerical approach also im- proves the simulation efficiency greatly as compared with a complete NMM modelling approach. The fracturing of a rock slab with pre-existing non-persistent joints located on a slope crest and the induced rockfall process are simulated. The validity of the modelling transition from the NMM to the DDA is verified and the applicability of the proposed nu- merical approach is investigated.

Numerical Manifold Method and Its Application in the Study of Crustal Movements in the Sichuan-Yunnan Area

The numerical manifold method （NMM） can calculate the movements and deformations of structures or materials. Both the finite element method （FEM） for continua and the discontinuous deformation analysis （DDA） for block systems are special cases of NMM. NMM has separate mathematical covers and physical meshes： the mathematical covers define only fine or rough approximations; as the real material boundary, the physical mesh defines the integration fields. The mathematical covers are triangle units; the physical mesh includes the fault boundaries, joints, blocks and interfaces of different crust zones on the basis of a geological tectonic background. Aiming at the complex problem of continuous and discontinuous deformation across the Chinese continent, the numerical manifold method （NMM） is brought in to study crustal movement of the Stchuan-Yunnan area. Based on the GPS velocity field in the Sichuan-Yunnan area, a crustal strain and stress field is simulated and analyzed. Moreover, results show that the NMM is a more suitable method than DDA in simulating the movement of the Sichuan-Yunnan area. Finally, a kind of mechanism of crustal motion in the Sichuan-Yunnan area is discussed in the paper.

Incompatible numerical manifold method for fracture problems

The incompatible numerical manifold method （INMM） is based on the finite cover approximation theory, which provides a unified framework for problems dealing with continuum and discontinuities. The incompatible numerical manifold method employs two cover systems as follows. The mathematical cover system provides the nodes for forming finite covers of the solution domain and the weighted functions, and the physical cover system describes geometry of the domain and the discontinuous surfaces therein. In INMM, the mathematical finite cover approximation theory is used to model cracks that lead to interior discontinuities in the process of displacement. Therefore, the discontinuity is treated mathematically instead of empirically by the existing methods. However, one cover of a node is divided into two irregular sub-covers when the INMM is used to model the discontinuity. As a result, the method sometimes causes numerical errors at the tip of a crack. To improve the precision of the INMM, the analytical solution is used at the tip of a crack, and thus the cover displacement functions are extended with higher precision and computational efficiency. Some numerical examples are given.

THE VARIATIONAL PRINCIPLES AND APPLICATION OF NONLINEAR NUMERICAL MANIFOLD METHOD

The physical-cover-oriented variational principle of nonlinear numerical manifold method (NNMM) for the analysis of plastical problems is put forward according to the displacement model and the characters of numerical manifold method (NMM). The theoretical calculating formulations and the controlling equation of NNMM are derived. As an example, the plate with a hole in the center is calculated and the results show that the solution precision and efficiency of NNMM are agreeable.

THEORETICAL STUDY OF THREE-DIMENSIONAL NUMERICAL MANIFOLD METHOD

The three-dimensional numerical manifold method（NMM） is studied on the basis of two-dimensional numerical manifold method. The three-dimensional cover displacement function is studied. The mechanical analysis and Hammer integral method of three-dimensional numerical manifold method are put forward. The stiffness matrix of three-dimensional manifold element is derived and the dissection rules are given. The theoretical system and the numerical realizing method of three-dimensional numerical manifold method are systematically studied. As an example, the cantilever with load on the end is calculated, and the results show that the precision and efficiency are agreeable.

THE VARIATIONAL PRINCIPLE AND APPLICATION OF NUMERICAL MANIFOLD METHOD

The physical-cover-oriented variational principle of numerical manifold method (NMM) for the analysis of linear elastic static problems was put forward according to the displacement model and the characters of numerical manifold method. ne theoretical calculating formulations and the controlling equation of NMM were derived. As an example, the plate with a hole in the center is calculated and the results show that the solution precision and efficiency of NMM are agreeable.

3D simulation of image-defined complex internal features using the numerical manifold method

The numerical simulation of internal features,such as inclusions and voids,is important to analyze their impact on the performance of composite materials.However,the complex geometries of internal features and the induced continuous-discontinuous(C-D)deformation fields are challenges to their numerical simulation.In this study,a 3D approach using a simple mesh to simulate irregular internal geometries is developed for the first time.With the help of a developed voxel crack model,image models that are efficient when recording complex geometries are directly imported into the simulation.Surface reconstructions,which are usually labor-intensive,are excluded from this approach.Moreover,using image models as the geometric input,image processing techniques are applied to detect material interfaces and develop contact pairs.Then,the C-D deformations of the complex internal features are directly calculated based on the numerical manifold method.The accuracy and convergence of the developed3D approach are examined based on multiple benchmarks.Successful 3D C-D simulation of sandstones with naturally formed complex microfeatures demonstrates the capability of the developed approach.

Three-dimensional numerical manifold method for heat conduction problems with a simplex integral on the boundary

The three-dimensional numerical manifold method(3D-NMM),which is based on the derivation of Galerkin's variation,is a powerful calculation tool that uses two cover systems.The 3D-NMM can be used to handle continue-discontinue problems and extend to THM coupling.In this study,we extended the 3D-NMM to simulate both steady-state and transient heat conduction problems.The modelling was carried out using the raster methods(RSM).For the system equation,a variational method was employed to drive the discrete equations,and the crucial boundary conditions were solved using the penalty method.To solve the boundary integral problem,the face integral of scalar fields and two-dimensional simplex integration were used to accurately describe the integral on polygonal boundaries.Several numerical examples were used to verify the results of 3D steady-state and transient heat-conduction problems.The numerical results indicated that the 3D-NMM is effective for handling 3D both steadystate and transient heat conduction problems with high solution accuracy.

Modeling wave propagation across rock masses using an enriched 3D numerical manifold method

The three-dimensional numerical manifold method(3DNMM) method is further enriched to simulate wave propagation across homogeneous/jointed rock masses. For the purpose of minimizing negative effects from artificial boundaries, a viscous nonreflecting boundary, which can effectively absorb the energy of a wave, is firstly adopted to enrich 3DNMM. Then, to simulate the elastic recovery property of an infinite problem domain, a viscoelastic boundary, which is developed from the viscous nonreflecting boundary, is further adopted to enrich 3DNMM. Finally, to eliminate the noise caused by scattered waves, a force input method which can input the incident wave correctly is incorporated into 3DNMM. Five typical numerical tests on P/S-wave propagation across jointed/homogeneous rock masses are conducted to validate the enriched 3DNMM. Numerical results indicate that wave propagation problems within homogeneous and jointed rock masses can be correctly and reliably modeled with the enriched 3DNMM.

Numerical manifold method for steady-state nonlinear heat conduction using Kirchhoff transformation

The numerical manifold method(NMM)introduces the mathematical and physical cover to solve both continuum and discontinuum problems in a unified manner.In this study,the NMM for solving steady-state nonlinear heat conduction problems is presented,and heat conduction problems consider both convection and radiation boundary conditions.First,the nonlinear governing equation of thermal conductivity,which is dependent on temperature,is transformed into the Laplace equation by introducing the Kirchhoff transformation.The transformation reserves linearity of both the Dirichlet and the Neumann boundary conditions,but the Robin and radiation boundary conditions remain nonlinear.Second,the NMM is employed to solve the Laplace equation using a simple iteration procedure because the nonlinearity focuses on parts of the problem domain boundaries.Finally,the temperature field is retrieved through the inverse Kirchhoff transformation.Typical examples are analyzed,demonstrating the advantages of the Kirchhoff transformation over the direct solution of nonlinear equations using the NewtonRaphson method.This study provides a new method for calculating nonlinear heat conduction.

A stable one-point quadrature rule for three-dimensional numerical manifold method

We present a numerically stable one-point quadrature rule for the stiffness matrix and mass matrix of the three-dimensional numerical manifold method(3D NMM).The rule simplifies the integration over irregularly shaped manifold elements and overcomes locking issues,and it does not cause spurious modes in modal analysis.The essential idea is to transfer the integral over a manifold element to a few moments to the element center,thereby deriving a one-point integration rule by the moments and making modifications to avoid locking issues.For the stiffness matrix,after the virtual work is decomposed into moments,higher-order moments are modified to overcome locking issues in nearly incompressible and bending-dominated conditions.For the mass matrix,the consistent and lumped types are derived by moments.In particular,the lumped type has the clear advantage of simplicity.The proposed method is naturally suitable for 3D NMM meshes automatically generated from a regular grid.Numerical tests justify the accuracy improvements and the stability of the proposed procedure.

On hp refinements of independent cover numerical manifold method——some strategies and observations

In this paper,strategies are provided for a powerful numerical manifold method(NMM)with h and p refinement in analyses of elasticity and elasto-plasticity.The new NMM is based on the concept of the independent cover,which gets rid of NMM's important defect of rank deficiency when using higher-order local approximation functions.Several techniques are presented.In terms of mesh generation,a relationship between the quadtree structure and the mathematical mesh is established to allow a robust h-refinement.As to the condition number,a scaling based on the physical patch is much better than the classical scaling based on the mathematical patch;an overlapping width of 1%–10%can ensure a good condition number for 2nd,3rd,and 4th order local approximation functions;the small element issue can be overcome after the local approximation on small patch is replaced by that on a regular patch.On numerical accuracy,local approximation using complete polynomials is necessary for the optimal convergence rate.Two issues that may damage the convergence rate should be prevented.The first is to approximate the curved boundary of a higher-order element by overly few straight lines,and the second is excessive overlapping width.Finally,several refinement strategies are verified by numerical examples.

MODELING UNCONFINED SEEPAGE FLOW USING THREE-DIMENSIONAL NUMERICAL MANIFOLD METHOD

Three-dimensional numerical manifold method for unconfined seepage analysis is proposed in this article.By constructing hydraulic potential functions of the manifold element,the element conductivity matrix and the global simultaneous equations for unconfined seepage analysis are derived in detail.The algorithm of locating the free surface and the formula for seepage forces are also given.Three-dimensional manifold method employs the tetrahedral mathematical meshes to cover the whole material volume.In the iterative process for locating the free surface,the manifold method can achieve an accurate seepage analysis of the saturated domain below the free surface with mathematical meshes unchanged.Since the shape of manifold elements can be arbitrary,the disadvantage of changing the permeability of transitional elements cut by the free surface in the conventional Finite Element Method（FEM） is removed,and the accuracy of locating the free surface can be ensured.Furthermore,the seepage force acting on the transitional elements can be accurately calculated by the simplex integration.Numerical results for a typical example demonstrate the validity of the proposed method.

Simulation of hydraulic fracture utilizing numerical manifold method

A 2nd order numerical manifold method(NMM) based method is developed to simulate the hydraulic fractures propagating process in rock or concrete. The proposed method uses a weak coupling technique to analyze the fluid phase and solid phase. To study the seepage behavior of the fluid phase, all the fractures in solid are identified by a block cutting algorithm and form a flow network. Then the hydraulic heads at crack ends are solved. To study the deformation and destruction of solid phase, the 2-order NMM and sub-region boundary element method are combined to solve the stress-strain field. Crack growth is controlled by the well-accepted criterion, including the tension criterion or Mohr-Coulomb criterion for the initialization of cracks and the maximum circumferential stress theory for crack propagation. Once the crack growth occurs, the seepage and deformation analysis will be resolved in the next simulation step. Such weak coupling analysis will continue until the structure becomes stable or is destructed. Five examples are used to verify the new method. The results demonstrate that the method can solve the SIFs at crack tip and fluid flow in crack network precisely, and the method is effective in simulating the hydraulic facture problem. Besides, the NMM shows great convenience and is of high accuracy in simulating the crack growth problem.

Two-dimensional numerical manifold method with multilayer covers

In order to reach the best numerical properties with the numerical manifold method(NMM),uniform finite element meshes are always favorite while constructing mathematical covers,where all the elements are congruent.In the presence of steep gradients or strong singularities,in principle,the locally-defined special functions can be added into the NMM space by means of the partition of unity,but they are not available to those complex problems with heterogeneity or nonlinearity,necessitating local refinement on uniform meshes.This is believed to be one of the most important open issues in NMM.In this study multilayer covers are proposed to solve this issue.In addition to the first layer cover which is the global cover and covers the whole problem domain,the second and higher layer covers with smaller elements,called local covers,are used to cover those local regions with steep gradients or strong singularities.The global cover and the local covers have their own partition of unity,and they all participate in the approximation to the solution.Being advantageous over the existing procedures,the proposed approach is easy to deal with any arbitrary-layer hanging nodes with no need to construct super-elements with variable number of edge nodes or introduce the Lagrange multipliers to enforce the continuity between small and big elements.With no limitation to cover layers,meanwhile,the creation of an even error distribution over the whole problem domain is significantly facilitated.Some typical examples with steep gradients or strong singularities are analyzed to demonstrate the capacity of the proposed approach.