Prismatic-element SBPML coupled with SBFEM for 3D infinite transient wave problems

Abstract

In this paper, an enhanced prismatic-element scaled boundary perfectly matched layer (SBPML) is developed, which is a novel time-domain artificial boundary method for 3D infinite wave problems. The SBPML permits the utilization of an artificial boundary with general geometry and can consider planar physical surfaces and interfaces extending to infinity. Moreover, this enhancement enables the seamless integration with surface meshes of arbitrary polygonal faces (such as triangles, quadrangles, pentagons, heptagons, octagons, etc.) at the truncation boundaries. The interior domain can be modelled by polyhedrons formulated by the scaled boundary finite element method (SBFEM). The geometric shape of the SBPML elements in the proposed method, within the local coordinate system, takes the form of a regular prism with regular polygonal top and bottom faces. Consequently, it is referred to as the Prismatic-element SBPML. Local scaled boundary coordinates based on the polygonal shape function are firstly introduced into the truncated infinite domain to describe its general geometry properties and provide the coupled capabilities with arbitrary polygonal face meshes at the truncation boundaries of numerical models. Then, a complex stretching function from PML is applied to radial direction of the local scaled boundary coordinates to map the physical space onto the complex space, resulting in a SBPML domain. Upon spatial discretization, the proposed method is formulated using a 2nd-order mixed displacement-stress unsplit-field formulation, allowing seamless coupling with FEM and SBFEM originally designed for the interior computational domain. Finally, three benchmark examples of wave propagation problems in unbounded domains and two soil-structure interaction problems of engineering problems are presented to demonstrate the accuracy and robustness of the Prismatic-element SBPML.