A Hydro-Mechanical Analytic Element Model for Seepage Forces
- 1Uppsala University, Department of Earth Sciences, Uppsala, Sweden (erik.toller@geo.uu.se)
- 2Department of Civil, Environmental, and Geo- Engineering, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, US
Understanding the behavior of hydro-mechanical processes is a challenging task, and groundwater plays an important role in these. We separate the effect of groundwater into two main parts: the pore pressure and the seepage force. Our interest is in the latter part, where we develop a model that incorporates analytically seepage forces in a linear elastic model. This is work in progress; we present our latest developments, focusing on both the theoretical framework and application.
The approach is a further development of the Analytic Element Method, which, was recently extended to linear elasticity. We link a groundwater analytic element to a linearly elastic one, including the seepage forces directly in the equation of the linear elastic model. We initially limit the model to one-way coupling and exclude the effect of stresses and strains on the hydraulic conductivity.
We present an application where we isolate the impact of the seepage force on the mechanical model focusing on situations where we expect a large pressure gradient.
How to cite: Toller, E. and Strack, O.: A Hydro-Mechanical Analytic Element Model for Seepage Forces, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 24–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-1958, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-1958, 2023.
