Dynamic Simulation of Sluice Foundation Piping Using Variable Grid Method

The occurrence of underground piping is a pluralistic and complex problem. Due to the great difficulty of the 3D dynamic simulation of piping both by theoretical and numerical analysis, currently there is no satisfactory mathematical model and numerical analysis software for it. In order to simulate the piping development process of sluice or dike foundation, in this paper, the 3D steady-unsteady saturated-unsaturated FEM seepage simulation method is used, and the concepts of destroyed element and variable grid method are introduced. The destroyed elements are removed from the original grid during the iterative calculation process, and the corresponding procedure for the 3D steady-unsteady piping process of sluice foundation is designed. Using appropriate post-processing program, the whole piping development of a sluice foundation can be displayed. A piping test of a sluice foundation model is simulated by the method provided in this paper. For the comparison of the experimental result and the simulation result, they showed very good agreement, which can verify the correctness of the piping simulation and programming methods given in this paper.