Development of an explicit smoothed particle finite element method for geotechnical applications

Abstract

By using an explicit time integration scheme and the strain smoothing nodal integration technique, a node-based explicit smoothed particle finite element method (eSPFEM) is presented in this paper. Compared to the original particle finite element method (PFEM), important features of the proposed method include (1) an explicit time integration algorithm to solve the dynamic problem, (2) a strain smoothing technique to avoid volumetric locking effects that are characteristic of low-order elements when the medium is incompressible and (3) the use of a nodal integration technique to bypass the transfer of frequent state variable between Gauss points and node points.