ABSTRACT

A robust numerical technique is presented for solution of coupled problems in saturated porous media with elasto-plastic behavior. The proposed method, called edge-based smoothed point interpolation method, is developed by application of the strain smoothing technique and the generalized smoothed Galerkin method to the governing equations of two phase porous media. Point interpolation shape functions are adopted for approximation of the independent variables in the problem domain. A novel approach for the evaluation of the coupling matrix of the porous media is adopted. Integration of the elasto-plastic constitutive model is performed using the substepping method, and the modified Newton-Raphson approach is utilized to address the global nonlinearities of the problem. The performance of the presented formulation is evaluated by studying two numerical examples and comparing the results of the analysis with analytical solutions and those obtained from the conventional finite element method.