Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 12 (2020) 168e179

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Journal of Rock Mechanics and

Geotechnical Engineering
journal homepage: www.jrmge.cn

Full Length Article

Dynamic soil-structure interaction analysis in time domain based on a

modified version of perfectly matched discrete layers
Dong Van Nguyen, Dookie Kim*
Department of Civil Engineering, Kunsan National University, 558 Daehak-ro, Gunsan-si, 54150, Republic of Korea

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Analysis of soil-structure interaction is commonly conducted by dividing the infinite domain of the soil
Received 25 October 2018 into two domains: interior and exterior domains. The interior domain is bounded in a small region, while
Received in revised form the exterior domain is replaced by artificial boundary conditions. The choice of artificial boundary
29 May 2019
conditions is a critical issue in the analysis of soil-structure interaction problems. Perfectly matched
Accepted 12 June 2019
Available online 9 September 2019
discrete layer (PMDL) has been proved as a good approach for modeling the exterior domain. In this
study, a modified version of the PMDLs, i.e. PMDLs with analytical wavelengths (AW-PMDLs), is used in
the soil-structure interaction analysis in time domain, which essentially can be regarded as an extension
Keywords:
Soil-structure interaction
of the analysis in frequency domain, being previously proven to be effective. Numerical verifications are
Time domain implemented. The results demonstrate that the proposed method performs well in the analysis of soil-
Wave propagation structure interaction problems in time domain.
Wavelength Ó 2019 Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Production and hosting by
Infinite domain Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/
Perfectly matched discrete layer (PMDL) licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

1. Introduction
Wave propagation in unbounded domains is considered as a
basic component of dynamic analysis of soil-structure interac-
tion. The spurious reflection needs to be reduced when the
waves impinge on the boundaries in order to obtain good results.
The simplest way to tackle the problem is to use a truncation far
away from the computational region. In this case, the soil model
is usually very large, thereby making the analysis a bit
prohibitive.
To reduce the size of a soil-structure interaction problem, the
soil is divided into interior and exterior domains (see Fig. 1). Usu-
ally, the exterior domain is replaced by artificial boundary condi-
tions which thereby render the infinite domain to be a finite
domain (the interior) with artificial boundary conditions.
Many kinds of artificial boundary conditions have been pro-
posed, such as the boundary element method (BEM) (Hall and
Oliveto, 2003), coupled finite element method (FEM) and BEM
(FEM-BEM) (Von Estorff, 1991), viscous boundaries (Lysmer and
Kuhlemeyer, 1969), transmitting boundaries (Lysmer and Drake,
1971; Lysmer and Waas, 1972; Kausel, 1974), infinite elements
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: kim2kie@kunsan.ac.kr (D. Kim).
Peer review under responsibility of Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics, Chi-
nese Academy of Sciences.
(Kim and Yun, 2000; Yun et al., 2000; Yang et al., 2015), perfectly
matched layers (PMLs) (Berenger, 1994; Basu and Chopra, 2004),
and perfectly matched discrete layers (PMDLs) (Guddati and
Tassoulas, 2000; Guddati and Lim, 2006).
Each artificial boundary condition has its own advantages and
limits. In BEM, only the boundary needs to be discretized, and it is
thereby more effective in terms of computational resources in
some cases. However, compared with FEM, BEM requires more
knowledge about fundamental solutions to the partial differential
equations, which leads to difficulties for engineers to apply the
BEM in practice due to the most general use of FEM in commercial
software. For viscous boundary, it is one of the most commonly
used methods due to its simplicity. It works effectively when the
interior domain of the soil medium is large enough to reduce the
incident angles of the waves at the boundaries. In Abaqus
(Dassault Systemes Simulia Corporation, 2014), an equivalent type
of viscous boundary, i.e. infinite element, is available. It has the
same merits and disadvantages with respect to the viscous
boundary. This kind of boundary condition has been applied in
many studies (Hokmabadi and Fatahi, 2016; Van Nguyen et al.,
2016, 2017; Fatahi et al., 2018). The results obtained by using
the infinite elements in Abaqus will be compared with the pro-
posed method in this paper. Viscous boundary and infinite ele-
ments belong to the types of local boundary conditions, which are
local in both space and time domains. They are known as
approximate solutions for boundary conditions, but they are easy

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrmge.2019.06.006
1674-7755 Ó 2019 Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-
NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
 D. Van Nguyen, D. Kim / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 12 (2020) 168e179 169

2. Perfectly matched discrete layers with analytical

wavelengths

In this section, the determination of the lengths for AW-PMDL

Exterior domain Interior domain Exterior domain elements in the time domain is discussed. The procedure is the
same as the one in the frequency domain (Van Nguyen and Kim,
2018). For a soil medium (Fig. 2a), the application of the AW-
PMDL elements is shown in Fig. 2b. The AW-PMDLx, AW-PMDLz,
and AW-PMDLxz are applied for the vertical edge, horizontal edge,
and corner, respectively.
For the edge elements (AW-PMDLx and AW-PMDLz), there are
Exterior domain two types: Types 1 and 2. Type 1 elements have pure imaginary
Half-Space lengths in order to absorb the propagating waves effectively. Type 2
elements with real lengths are used to absorb the evanescent
waves.
Fig. 1. Soil-structure interaction system. The lengths of Type 1 AW-PMDLx and AW-PMDLz elements are
calculated as follows:

to be implemented. On the other hand, the global boundary 2iV

LType 1
¼  (1)
conditions like transmitting boundaries are completely coupled in
x;z
u cosqj
space and time domains. They are exact solutions, but are
cumbersome. In addition to the local and global boundary con- where V is the wave (S- and P-wave) velocity, and the values of qj
ditions, there is another type of boundary condition called satisfying 0  qj < p/2 are chosen as follows:
material-based boundary condition, for instance, PML. The prin-
ðj  1Þp
ciple of the PML is based on a special absorbing medium. One of qj ¼ ðj ¼ 1; 2; .; n0 Þ (2)
the major advantages of the PML is its simple implementation. 2n0
The noticeable drawbacks of PML are the presence of discretiza-
where n0 is the layer number of Type 1 elements.
tion and truncation errors. By combining the advantages of the
The lengths of the Type 2 elements are real and related to the
local boundary condition and PML, PMDL is developed
wavelengths of the problem (lx and lz):
subsequently.
PMDL is one of the most efficient methods to solve soil-structure
¼ lx ¼ Vs =fx
Type 2
Lx (3)
interaction problems. It is originally known as continued fraction
absorbing boundary condition (CFABC) (Guddati and Tassoulas,
2000), which combines the advantages of two methods, i.e. local LType
z
2
¼ lz ¼ Vs =fz (4)
absorbing boundary condition (ABC) and PML. The accuracy of local
ABC and the flexibility of PML are both taken into consideration in where Vs is the S-wave velocity; and fx and fz are the horizontal and
the PMDL. The presence of real and imaginary lengths together vertical natural frequencies of the soil medium, respectively, which
allows the PMDL to absorb both propagating and evanescent waves. are derived as follows (Rowe, 2012):
One of the key factors of the PMDL is the use of mid-point inte-
gration rule in order to eliminate the discretization error (Guddati Vs ð2m  1Þ
fx ¼ ðm ¼ 1; 2; .Þ (5)
and Tassoulas, 2000). The power of the PMDL method has been 4H
proved by many studies, such as time harmonic wave propagation

in discretized domains (Thirunavukkarasu and Guddati, 2011), Vs ð2m  1Þ 2ð1  nÞ 1=2
fz ¼ ðm ¼ 1; 2; .Þ (6)
scalar wave propagation (Guddati and Lim, 2006), and static anal- 4H 1  2n
ysis (Savadatti and Guddati, 2010).
In the recent work by Van Nguyen and Kim (2018), the authors where m is the mode numbering of the problem, n is the Poisson’s
proposed a modified version of the PMDLs, i.e. perfectly matched ratio, and H is the truncated depth of the soil medium (Fig. 2).
discrete layers with analytical wavelengths (AW-PMDLs). The From Eqs. (3)e(6), we obtain
method was applied in the frequency domain with a different
strategy to determine the parameters, and the effectiveness and 4H
LType
x
2
¼ ðm ¼ 1; 2; .Þ (7)
accuracy of the method were demonstrated; furthermore, the 2m  1
computational effort is reduced considerably.


However, to solve the problem in time domain with the AW- Type 2 4H 2ð1  nÞ 1=2
Lz ¼ ðm ¼ 1; 2; .Þ (8)
PMDLs, there still exist some problems due to the presence of the 2m  1 1  2n
imaginary lengths. The procedure to deal with the boundary con-
ditions in a direct integration algorithm based on real numbers is In the case of the corner elements (AW-PMDLxz), which are the
not clear either. Therefore, the proposed method of AW-PMDL is tensor products of the AW-PMDLx and AW-PMDLz elements, their
developed, verified, and applied to the time domain for soil- lengths in each direction are taken from the corresponding edge
structure interaction analysis with a clear algorithm. First, the elements in the same directions.
determination of AW-PMDLs parameters is shown. Second, for the
sake of the application of AW-PMDL elements in the time domain, a 3. Finite element algorithm
finite element algorithm is presented to derive the dynamic stiff-
ness of the AW-PMDL elements. Third, numerical analyses are One of the most important characteristics of the PMDL and AW-
provided to verify the proposed method in the time domain, and PMDL elements is the application of mid-point integration in order
finally, the conclusions are made. to eliminate the discretization error. As shown in Fig. 3, in the
170 D. Van Nguyen, D. Kim / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 12 (2020) 168e179

Z
Finite elements AW-PMDLx

X Interior domain Lx

Interior domain
Fin ite elements
Interior domain
H

(Finite elements)

AW-PM D Lz

Lz
Exterior domain
(AW-PMDL elements)

Half-Space
AW-PMDLxz
(Corner elements)
(a) (b)

Fig. 2. Application of AW-PMDL elements to a half-space problem. (a) Original half-space problem; and (b) Model with AW-PMDL elements.

Finite elements AW-PMDLx

Interior domain
In terio r d o main
Fin ite elemen ts

Near Field (2x2 integration)

AW-PMDLx (1x2 integration)

AW-PMDLz (2x1 integration)

AW-PM D Lz

AW-PMDLxz (1x1 integration)

AW-PMDLxz
(Corner elements)

Fig. 3. Finite elements and AW-PMDL elements.

model with the AW-PMDL elements, there are four types of inte- According to Lee et al. (2014), the stiffness matrix K and mass
gration rules: 2  2 integration (finite elements in the interior matrix M of the rectangular element in Fig. 4 are obtained as
domain), 1  2 integration (AW-PMDLx elements), 2  1 integration follows:
(AW-PMDLz elements), and 1  1 integration (AW-PMDLxz Z1 Z1 
elements). b T a
K ¼ B Drr Brr þ BTss Dss Bss þ BTrs Drs Brs
In this study, the dynamic stiffness of a rectangular AW-PMDL a rr b
1 1
element is evaluated by applying the Gauss rule (Weaver and 
Johnston, 1984; Cook, 2007) with physical and natural co- þ BTsr Dsr Bsr drds (10)
ordinates shown in Fig. 4a, b, respectively. The dynamic stiffness of
the element is defined as follows:

Z1 Z1
S ¼ K þ iuC  u M 2
(9) M¼ abrN T Ndrds (11)
1 1
where K, M and C are the stiffness, mass, and damping matrices,
respectively; and u is the excitation frequency. where r is the mass density, and N is the shape function matrix.
 D. Van Nguyen, D. Kim / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 12 (2020) 168e179 171

2 3
z vN1 vN4
6 vs 0 / 0 7
vs
Bsr ¼6
4
7 (15)
vN1 vN 5
4
0 / 0
vr vr
4 3
The elasticity matrices for plane strain conditions are given by


l þ 2m 0
b

Drr ¼ (16)
0 m

x

m 0
Dss ¼ (17)
0 l þ 2m
b


0 m
Drs ¼ (18)
1 2 m 0

where l and m are the Lame constants, which can be written as

a a
(a) En
s l¼ (19)
ð1 þ nÞð1  2nÞ

E
m¼ (20)
4 3 2ð1 þ nÞ

where E is the elastic modulus.

1

The shape function matrix N in Eq. (11) is of the following form:


N1 0 N2 0 N3 0 N4 0
N ¼ (21)
r 0 N1 0 N2 0 N3 0 N4

where the shape function Nj is expressed as follows:

1

1
1 N1 ¼ ð1  rÞð1  sÞ (22)
2 4

1 1 1
N2 ¼ ð1 þ rÞð1  sÞ (23)
(b) 4

Fig. 4. A rectangular AW-PMDL element: (a) Physical coordinate, and (b) Natural
1
coordinate. N3 ¼ ð1 þ rÞð1 þ sÞ (24)
4

The strain-displacement matrices are achieved through the 1

N4 ¼ ð1  rÞð1 þ sÞ (25)
following definitions: 4
In this study, Rayleigh damping is used in the time domain
2 3 analysis, which is defined as (Chopra, 2001):
vN1 vN4
6 vr 0 / 0 7
6 vr 7 C ¼ aM þ bK (26)
Brr ¼4 (12)
vN1 vN 5
4
0 / 0 where a and b are the mass and stiffness proportional coefficients,
vr vr
respectively.
The values of a and b are determined using the damping ratios
2 3 of two different natural modes m and n. Usually, the same damping
vN1 vN4
0 / 0 7 ratio (x) is assumed for both modes, and then we have
6 vs vs
Bss ¼6
4
7 (13)
vN1 vN 5 2 um un
0 / 0 4
a¼x (27)
vs vs um þ un

2
2 3 b¼x (28)
vN1 vN4 um þ un
6 vr 0 / 0 7
6 vr 7
Brs ¼4 (14) where um and un are the natural frequencies of modes m and n,
vN1 vN 54
0 / 0 respectively.
vs vs
172 D. Van Nguyen, D. Kim / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 12 (2020) 168e179

The results of the problems in the time domain are influenced by For an AW-PMDLz element with the wave velocity Vz and the
the frequencies selected to define the damping coefficients (a and corresponding length 2b ¼ 2iVz =ðu cosqj Þ; the dynamic stiffness
b) in Eqs. (27) and (28). There have been some studies examining is given as
the use of Rayleigh damping in the time domain (Park and Hashash,
2004; Hall, 2006; Tyapin, 2016). In the work of Park and Hashash
1
(2004), the authors suggested a procedure to choose the natural Sz ¼ Kz þ iuCz  u2 Mz þ Rz (35)
frequencies to obtain the damping coefficients for a soil medium: iu
the first frequency is the first natural frequency of the soil medium
and the second one is the frequency that agrees with the pre-
dominant frequency of the excitation motion. Z1 Z1  
In a soil medium, the damping is usually represented by hys- Kz ¼ BTrs Drs Brs þ BTsr Dsr Bsr drds
teretic damping. This kind of damping is independent of frequency 1 1
and used to define the complex stiffness of models. For that reason, Z1 Z1
aVz
the hysteretic damping is easy to be implemented in the frequency þa rN T Ndrds
domain. However, in the time domain, it needs to be converted to cosqj
1 1
Rayleigh damping for the sake of applications. According to Soroka
Z1 Z1
(1949), if the values of damping are small (i.e. hysteretic damping Vz
factor h  20%), the relationship between the hysteretic damping þb BT Drr Brr drds (36)
a cosqj rr
factor (h) and the Rayleigh damping ratio (x) can be expressed as 1 1

x ¼ h=2 (29)
Z1 Z1
For evanescent waves, the lengths of the AW-PMDL elements a cosqj T
are real; therefore, the dynamic stiffness S in Eq. (9) is formed with
Cz ¼ Bss Dss Bss drds
Vz
the same ordinary finite elements except using the mid-point 1 1
integration rule. However, for propagating waves, the lengths of Z1 Z1  
the AW-PMDL elements are imaginary. To make use of the AW- þb BTrs Drs Brs þ BTsr Dsr Bsr drds
PMDL elements in the time domain, some modifications are 1 1
needed. From Eqs. (9)e(11) with the wave velocity Vx and corre-
Z1 Z1
sponding length 2a ¼ 2iVx =ðu cosqj Þ; the dynamic stiffness ma- aVz
þ rN T Ndrds (37)
trix of an AW-PMDLx element is expressed as follows: cosqj
1 1
1
Sx ¼ Kx þ iuCx  u Mx þ Rx 2
(30)
iu
Z1 Z1
a cosqj T
Z1 Z1   Mz ¼ b Bss Dss Bss drds (38)
Vz
Kx ¼ BTrs Drs Brs þ BTsr Dsr Bsr drds 1 1
1 1
Z1 Z1
bVx Z1 Z1
þa rN T Ndrds Vz
cosqj Rz ¼ BT Drr Brr drds (39)
1 1 a cosqj rr
1 1
Z1 Z1
Vx
þb BT Dss Bss drds (31) In the case of an AW-PMDLxz element, if at least one length, 2a
b cosqj ss or 2b, is real, the procedure to determine the dynamic stiffness is
1 1
similar to that of the edge elements (AW-PMDLx and AW-PMDLz).
However, if both of the lengths (2a and 2b) are imaginary, i.e.
Z1 Z1
b cosqj T 2a ¼ 2iVx =ðu cosqj Þ and 2b ¼  2iVz =ðu cosqj0Þ; the dynamic
Cx ¼ Brr Drr Brr drds
Vx stiffness should be updated as
1 1
Z1 Z1  
1
þb BTrs Drs Brs þ BTsr Dsr Bsr drds Sxz ¼ Kxz þ iuCxz þ Rxz (40)
iu
1 1
Z1 Z1
bVx
þ rN T Ndrds (32) Z1 Z1
cosqj Vz cosqj T Vx cosqj0 T
1 1 Kxz ¼ B Drr Brr þ B Dss Bss
Vx cosqj0 rr Vz cosqj ss
1 1
!
Z1 Z1
b cosqj T þ BTrs Drs Brs þ BTsr Dsr Bsr drds
Mx ¼ b Brr Drr Brr drds (33)
Vx
1 1
Z1 Z1
Z1 Z1 Vx Vz
Vx þ rN T Ndrds (41)
Rx ¼ BT Dss Bss drds (34) cosqj cosqj0
b cosqj ss 1 1
1 1
 D. Van Nguyen, D. Kim / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 12 (2020) 168e179 173

Z1 Z1
Vz cosqj T Vx cosqj0 T
Pv
Cxz ¼ b Brr Drr Brr þ B Dss Bss
Vx cosqj0 Vz cosqj ss
1 1
! Ph
þ BTrs Drs Brs þ BTsr Dsr Bsr drds (42)
Elastic Block
A

Z1 Z1 EB, ρB, νB
Vx Vz h=12m
Rxz ¼ a rN T Ndrds (43)
cosqj cosqj0 Z
1 1
X
The equation of motion of the system, including the interior
finite elements and the AW-PMDL elements, is written in the time
domain (Guddati and Lim, 2006) as follows: 2b=8 m
€ þ C UðtÞ
M UðtÞ _ þ KUðtÞ þ RWðtÞ ¼ F (44)

€
where UðtÞ; _
UðtÞ and U(t) are the acceleration, velocity, and
R Homogeneous half-space
displacement vectors, respectively; and W ¼ Udt is the integra- soil medium
tion of displacement U. In the case of the AW-PMDL elements, the
values of M, C, K, and R matrices are obtained from Eqs. (30)e(43). ES, ρS, νS
In this paper, the AW-PMDL elements are implemented as user-
defined element (UEL) subroutines in Abaqus (Dassault Systemes
Simulia Corporation, 2014) using the implicit algorithm. In the
subroutine for an AW-PMDL element, properties, original co-
ordinates of the nodes, and nodal displacements are given, while
the right-hand-side vector of the residual and the Jacobian matrix
of the element must be defined.
Fig. 5. Block on a homogeneous half-space soil medium problem.

4. Numerical verifications P (kN /m)

4.1. Dynamic analysis of a block on a homogeneous half-space soil

medium
1.0
In this section, an elastic block on a homogeneous half-space soil
medium is considered (Fig. 5). As shown in the figure, the block has
a width of 2b ¼ 8 m, and a height of h ¼ 12 m. Two cases of loads are
applied at the top of the block: the vertical impulse load (Pv) and
the horizontal impulse load (Ph). The function of the impulse loads
is given in Fig. 6. The material properties of the block and soil
5∆t t
medium are shown in Table 1. Two elastic modulus of the soil are
considered: ES ¼ EB/3 and ES ¼ EB. ∆t=0.0008 s
The half-space soil is modeled by using 16  30 finite elements
in the interior domain and AW-PMDL elements in the exterior Fig. 6. Load function for Pv and Ph.
domain (Fig. 7). The AW-PMDL elements are applied as UEL in
Abaqus. A similar model as the AW-PMDL model, i.e. the same
interior region, is implemented. In this model, the infinite elements The horizontal and vertical displacements at point A of the
(CINPE4), which are available in Abaqus, are used instead of the block due to the distributed horizontal and vertical loads are
AW-PMDL elements. examined, respectively. The time-history displacements of the
In addition to the analysis of applied AW-PMDL and infinite AW-PMDL, infinite elements, and extended models are shown in
elements models, an extended model with large dimensions is Figs. 8 and 9, where the results obtained by Von Estorff (1991)
examined as well. are also provided as a reference solution. In the reference
The dimensions of the extended model are chosen large enough solution, BEM and FEM were applied. The displacements are
so that the model can be considered to attenuate effectively the
wave propagation. The width and height of the soil stratum of the
extended model are 100b ¼ 400 m, and 50b ¼ 200 m, respectively.
Table 1
The model includes 200  100 finite elements. The base of the Material properties (block on a homogeneous half-space soil medium problem).
extended model is fixed and the lateral boundaries are free.
Material Elastic Mass Poisson’s
Due to the convergence characteristics, the accuracy of the nu-
modulus (kPa) density (kg/m3) ratio
merical problems will reach a certain level when the number of the
AW-PMDLs elements is increased to a certain value. In this study, 11 Block EB ¼ 3  107 rB ¼ 2000 nB ¼ 0.25
Soil medium (homogeneous half-space)
layers of AW-PMDLs are used to simulate the exterior domain of the Case 1 (ES ¼ EB/3) ES ¼ 1  107 rS ¼ 2000 nS ¼ 0.25
soil media for all the numerical verifications: two layers of Type 1 Case 2 (ES ¼ EB) ES ¼ 3  107 rS ¼ 2000 nS ¼ 0.25
(Eq. (1)) and nine layers of Type 2 (Eqs. (7) and (8) with m ¼ 1, 2, ., 9).
174 D. Van Nguyen, D. Kim / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 12 (2020) 168e179

2b=8m plotted against dimensionless time defined as t0 ¼ tVs =b: It can

Pv
be seen that the results of the proposed method, the infinite el-
ements model, the extended model, and the reference solution
Ph Elastic Block have a good agreement. However, there are some differences
4x6 Finite Elements

h=12m
A between the infinite elements and the AW-PMDL models. The
reason is that the behavior of the infinite elements in Abaqus is
similar to the one of the viscous boundaries, and they do not
absorb perfectly the propagating waves when the interior region
is small.

Interior domain
4.2. Dynamic analysis of a block on a layered soil medium over
15b=60m

half-space
AW-PMDLx 16x30 Finite Elements AW-PMDLx

In order to examine the effectiveness of the proposed AW-PMDL

method in a layered soil medium over half-space, we consider a
problem with an elastic block as shown in Fig. 10. The dimensions of
the block and the applied external loads are the same as the one
mentioned above for the homogeneous soil medium.
The soil medium includes two layers: the first one is 4 m thick
and the second one is a half-space layer. Table 2 shows the prop-
erties of the block and two soil layers. The elastic moduli of the two
AW-PMDLxz AW-PMDLz AW-PMDLxz
soil layers will be taken based on the relations: E1 ¼ EB/3 and
E2 ¼ 10E1.
In the built AW-PMDL model (Fig. 11), the number of finite el-
8b=32m ements of the interior domain is 16  30 for the soil layers and 4  6
for the block. The AW-PMDL elements are implemented using the
Fig. 7. Block on a homogeneous half-space soil medium with AW-PMDLs application. UEL in Abaqus.

Von Estorff (1991) Von Estorff (1991)

(a) (b)

Fig. 8. Displacements at point A of the block on a homogeneous half-space soil medium problem (ES ¼ EB/3). (a) Vertical displacements due to a vertical load; and (b) Horizontal
displacements due to a horizontal load.

Von Estorff (1991) Von Estorff (1991)

(a) (b)

Fig. 9. Displacements at point A of the block on a homogeneous half-space soil medium problem (ES ¼ EB). (a) Vertical displacements due to a vertical load; and (b) Horizontal
displacements due to a horizontal load.
 D. Van Nguyen, D. Kim / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 12 (2020) 168e179 175

2b=8 m Corresponding infinite elements (CINPE4) and extended

models are analyzed so as to make a comparison with the pro-
Pv posed method of AW-PMDLs. In the case of the infinite elements
model, the interior domain is kept the same as that in the AW-
Ph PMDL model. The characteristics of the extended model are the
Elastic Block same as those in the previous section: the width of the soil me-
A dium is 100b ¼ 400 m, the height is 50b ¼ 200 m, and the number
of finite elements for the soil medium is 200  100. The fixed base
EB, ρB, νB and free lateral edges are applied as the boundary conditions of
h=12m
Z the model.
The vertical and horizontal displacements at point A are
X
calculated, respectively. The results of the AW-PMDL model,
infinite elements model, and the extended model are presented
Layer 1 E1=EB/3, ρ1, ν1 h1=4m together with a reference solution obtained by Kim and Yun
(2000) in Fig. 12. In the reference solution, the authors imple-
Layer 2 E2=10E1, ρ2, ν2 mented analytical frequency-dependent infinite elements for the

Half-space soil medium Kim & Yun (2000)

Fig. 10. Block on a layered soil medium over half-space problem.

Table 2
Material properties (block on a layered soil medium over half-space problem).

Material Elastic modulus (kPa) Mass density (kg/m3) Poisson’s ratio

Block EB ¼ 3  107
rB ¼ 2000 nB ¼ 0.25
Layer 1 E1 ¼ 1  107 r1 ¼ 2000 n1 ¼ 0.25
Layer 2 E2 ¼ 1  108 r2 ¼ 2000 n2 ¼ 0.25
(half-space)

(a)
2b=8m
Pv

Ph Elastic Block
4x6 Finite Elements
h=12m

A
Kim & Yun (2000)
Layer 1

Layer 2

Interior domain
15b=60m

AW-PMDLx 16x30 Finite Elements AW-PMDLx

(Layer 1+Layer 2)

AW-PMDLxz AW-PMDLz AW-PMDLxz

(b)
8b=32m
Fig. 12. Displacements at point A of the block on a layered soil medium over half-space
problem. (a) Vertical displacements due to a vertical load; and (b) Horizontal dis-
Fig. 11. Block on a layered soil medium over half-space with AW-PMDLs application. placements due to a horizontal load.
176 D. Van Nguyen, D. Kim / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 12 (2020) 168e179

exterior domain. The dimensionless time in the figure is decided Tunnel

B
as t0 ¼ tVs1 =b; where Vs1 is the shear wave velocity of layer 1.

4m
Clearly, the AW-PMDL elements have a good behavior for a 2b=5m
layered soil medium.
2.0m

h=6m
P
4.3. Dynamic analysis of a tunnel in a homogeneous half-space soil
medium A

10b=25m
AW-PMDLx AW-PMDLx
In this section, a tunnel system is considered with the traffic Interior domain
load applied on the bottom of the tunnel (Fig. 13). The traffic load is
presented as a distributed vertical load (P) with the load function of 40x50 Finite Elements
time as shown in Fig. 14. The material properties of the tunnel and
soil are given in Table 3. The responses of two points will be
examined: point A at the bottom of the tunnel and point B at the
ground surface (Fig. 13).
The AW-PMDL elements are applied for the exterior domain of
AW-PMDLxz AW-PMDLz AW-PMDLxz
the soil medium as shown in Fig. 15. The number of finite elements
in the interior domain is 40  50 and the element size is
8b=20m

Z 1 Fig. 15. Tunnel in a homogeneous half-space soil medium with AW-PMDLs

X application.
B

0.5 0.5 0.50.5 4 0.5 m  0.5 m. Similar to the previous sections, the infinite ele-
3 ments and extended models of the problem are analyzed as well.
The dimensions of the extended model are chosen to be very large
0.5
Tunnel 0.5 (i.e. 80b  80b ¼ 200 m  200 m). The number of finite elements of
Et, ρt, νt the extended model is 400  400 with an element size of
0.5 m  0.5 m.
h =6 4
2 The vertical displacements at points A and B are plotted against
P the dimensionless time t0 ¼ tVs =b. The results of the three models
0.5 (the AW-PMDL, the infinite elements, and the extended models)
0.5
A 2b = 5 are compared with the reference solution of Von Estorff and Antes
(1991) obtained by using hybrid method combining the FEM and
BEM. Fig. 16 indicates that the proposed AW-PMDL elements have a
good implementation.
Homogeneous half-space soil medium
Es, ρs, νs

4.4. Dynamic analysis of a tunnel in a layered soil medium over

Dimensions in m
half-space

In this section, the effectiveness of the proposed method in the

Fig. 13. Tunnel in a homogeneous soil medium over half-space problem. time domain is examined by analyzing a tunnel system in a layered
soil medium over half-space (Fig. 17). The traffic load at the bottom
of the tunnel is the same as the one in the homogeneous soil case
P (Fig. 14). The properties used for the system are shown in Table 4.
The vertical displacement at point A is monitored for two cases
50 kN/m
based on the ratio of the elastic modulus between two layers: case 1
(E2 ¼ 2E1) and case 2 (E2 ¼ 5E1).
Fig. 18 shows the truncated model with the AW-PMDLs appli-
cation. The number of finite elements in the interior domain is
40  50. The size of the elements shown in Fig. 18 is 0.5 m  0.5 m.
A similar infinite elements (CINPE4) model is considered. Then, an
20∆t t extended model with the same element size as that in the AW-
PMDL model (0.5 m  0.5 m) is chosen. The number of finite ele-
∆t=0.001 s ments of the extended model is 400  400 and the dimensions are
considered large enough for the wave propagation problem: the
Fig. 14. Load function for vertical load P.
width of the model is 80b ¼ 200 m, and the height is 80b ¼ 200 m
Table 3
as well.
Material properties (tunnel in a homogeneous half-space soil medium problem). The responses at point A are shown in Fig. 19, including the
results of the AW-PMDL model, the infinite elements model, the
Material Elastic modulus (kPa) Mass density (kg/m3) Poisson’s ratio
extended model, and the reference solution of Kim and Yun (2000).
Tunnel Et ¼ 6  10 6
rt ¼ 2000 nt ¼ 0.25 The dimensionless time is defined as t0 ¼ tVs1 =b: The results show
Soil ES ¼ 2.66  105 rS ¼ 2000 nS ¼ 0.33
that the AW-PMDL elements perform very well.
 D. Van Nguyen, D. Kim / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 12 (2020) 168e179 177

Z
X

0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5 4

3

0.5
Tunnel 0.5
Et, ρt, νt
12
h=6 4
2
P
This study Layer 1: E1, ρ1, ν1 0.5
Von Estorff & Antes (1991) 0.5
A 2b = 5
Extended model
Infinite element

Layer 2: E2, ρ2, ν2

Half-space
(a)
Dimensions in m

Fig. 17. Tunnel in a layered soil medium over half-space problem.

Table 4
Material properties (tunnel in a layered soil medium over half-space problem).

Medium Elastic Mass Poisson’s

modulus (kPa) density (kg/m3) ratio

Tunnel Et ¼ 6  106 rt ¼ 2000 nt ¼ 0.25

Layer 1 E1 ¼ 2.66  105 r1 ¼ 2000 n1 ¼ 0.33
Layer 2 (half-space)
This study Case 1 (E2 ¼ 2E1) E2 ¼ 5.32  105 r2 ¼ 2000 n2 ¼ 0.33
Von Estorff & Antes (1991) Case 2 (E2 ¼ 5E1) E2 ¼ 1.33  106 r2 ¼ 2000 n2 ¼ 0.33
Extended model
Infinite element
Tunnel
4m

2b=5m

(b) AW-PMDLx Layer 1

2.0m
AW-PMDLx
h=6m

P
Fig. 16. Vertical displacements of the tunnel in a homogeneous half-space soil medium
problem. (a) Vertical displacements at point A; and (b) Vertical displacements at point B.
A
2m
10b=25m

4.5. Computational time Layer 2 Interior domain

AW-PMDLx AW-PMDLx
In this section, the computational time of different models as 40x50 Finite Elements
(Layer 1+Layer 2)
discussed above is calculated and compared. Since the computa-
tional time of previous studies (Von Estorff, 1991; Vos Estorff and
Antes, 1991; Kim and Yun, 2000) was not given, the comparison is
made only between the proposed model (AW-PMDL elements),
AW-PMDLxz AW-PMDLz AW-PMDLxz
the infinite elements model, and the extended model. A personal
computer with 3.4 GHz CPU is used to analyze all the models. The
comparison of the total computational time is presented in 8b=20m
Table 5.
It can be easily found that the computational time of the pro- Fig. 18. Tunnel in a layered soil medium over half-space with AW-PMDLs application.
posed model (AW-PMDL elements) is the smallest compared with
the infinite elements and the extended models, and the computa-
tional time of the extended model is more than the others. In that of the infinite elements model, its difference is not marked.
this study, the proposed model has similar interior domain to that However, in general, if the models use the infinite elements to
of the infinite elements model. For that reason, although the reach the accuracy as the AW-PMDLs model does, their interior
computational time of the proposed method is still smaller than domains need to be further extended, which would in turn cause
178 D. Van Nguyen, D. Kim / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 12 (2020) 168e179

the increase of the computational time. Therefore, the proposed

method with AW-PMDL elements is effective in terms of compu-
tational cost as well.
Kim & Yun (2000)
5. Conclusions

In this study, a procedure was given to apply AW-PMDLs in the

time domain for soil-structure interaction analysis. The procedure
was developed based on the AW-PMDL elements in the frequency
domain, which was proposed recently. For the sake of application of
the AW-PMDL elements in the time domain, a finite element al-
gorithm was presented. The algorithm was implemented by using
the UEL in Abaqus. It was demonstrated that the AW-PMDL ele-
ments are applied easily for the exterior domain in the time
domain. Numerical verifications with application of the AW-PMDL
elements were analyzed for the models of a block and a tunnel on
homogeneous and layered soil media. The results showed that the
proposed AW-PMDL elements are effective and accurate in the time
domain. The present AW-PMDLs can be extended to nonlinear
applications and earthquake loading problems as well. Further-
(a) more, three-dimensional version of AW-PMDLs is a promising
problem in the future.

Declaration of Competing Interest

Kim & Yun (2000)
The authors wish to confirm that there are no known conflicts of
interest associated with this publication and there has been no
significant financial support for this work that could have influ-
enced its outcome.

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Korea Institute of Energy

Technology Evaluation and Planning (KETEP) and the Ministry of
Trade, Industry and Energy (MOTIE) of the Republic of Korea (Grant
No. 20171510101960).

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Dookie Kim is Professor at the Department of Civil En-
gineering, Kunsan National University (KNU), Republic of
Korea. He is a licensed professional engineer both in Korea
and in the United States. He received his BSc degree in
Civil and Environmental Engineering from Korea Univer-
sity in 1993, and his MSc and PhD degrees in Civil Engi-
neering from Korea Advanced Institute of Science and
Technology (KAIST) in 1995 and 1999, respectively. His
research interests include structural dynamics, artificial
intelligence, and probability engineering. He has pub-
lished several books and more than 100 international
journal papers.