Three case studies involving the use of numerical models are presented in this paper. First, a comparison of FE modelling of a deep excavation is made using 2-D finite element software, SAGE-CRISP and PLAXIS. In the second study, benchmarking is made between results obtained from 2-D FE modelling using PLAXIS and well-established 3-D centrifuge studies for the case of an existing single pile an...

In order to satisfactorily reproduce the Soil-Structure Interaction (SSI) effects under earthquake loading, it is often necessary to model a large domain of the soil surrounding the structure of interest. High spatial/temporal resolution is another challenge in analyzing these models. A new parallel nonlinear finite element program, ParCYCLIC, is employed to study such high fidelity large-scale...

We present simulations of the one-dimensional Oslo rice pile model in which the critical height at each site is randomly reset after each toppling. We use the fact that the stationary state of this sand-pile model is hyperuniform to reach system of sizes >10^{7}. Most previous simulations were seriously flawed by important finite-size corrections. We find that all critical exponents have values...

Strain wedge (SW) model formulation has been used, in previous work, to evaluate the response of a single pile or a group of piles (including its pile cap) in layered soils to lateral loading. The SW model approach provides appropriate prediction for the behavior of an isolated pile and pile group under lateral static loading in layered soil (sand and/or clay). The SW model analysis covers the ...

Many out-of-equilibrium systems respond to external driving with nonlinear and self-similar dynamics. This near scale-invariant behavior of relaxation events has been modeled through sand pile cellular automata. However, a common feature of these models is the assumption of a local connectivity, while in many real systems, we have evidence for longer range connectivity and a complex topology of...

We introduce a mechanism for generating power law distributions, referred to as highly optimized tolerance (HOT), which is motivated by biological organisms and advanced engineering technologies. Our focus is on systems which are optimized, either through natural selection or engineering design, to provide robust performance despite uncertain environments. We suggest that power laws in these sy...

– From the observation of a convection flow in a single layer of vertically vibrated sand, we conclude that the amplitude gradient of the vibrating bed, which is naturally expected but often neglected, can be crucial for the same phenomenon in containers with more sand. A simple model is proposed to explain the dependence of the drift velocity on the vibration amplitude and frequency. The conve...

This paper proposes an analytical method based on drained solutions of cavity expansion and contraction in a unified clay sand model to investigate tunnel–soil–pile interactions. Cavity analyses are used evaluate the effects pile installation ground stresses determine end-bearing capacity distribution shaft friction. methods were adopted replicate tunnel convergence–confinement response using s...

the pile-raft foundation is a combination of a raft foundation with piles. pile-raft foundation has been widely designed, assuming all structure loads to be transferred to piles without considering contribution of the load taken by contact surface between raft and soil. methods of analysis currently used in practice are based upon relatively conservative assumptions of soil behavior or on the l...