Soil Finite Element Modeling

The engNoveX team has extensive experience modeling soil using the latest
commercial finite element software. The background below showcases some
of the three-dimensional models that the engNoveX team has created for past
projects.

MODELING OF PILES IN SOIL

The engNoveX team has subject matter experts experienced in the field of
performing soil-pile interaction analysis to estimate the dynamic stiffness and
damping of piles under machine induced dynamic loading. The team uses
state-of-the-art techniques to model the soil-pile interaction effects and has
developed several automation tools to model the soil bounded domain.
Vertical Displacement Distribution for Pile Group 2x2 and Spacing = 3.0 ft
BACKGROUND
The dynamic performance of a machine foundation system is very sensitive to
the supporting soil, and in a case of poor soil conditions machine foundations
are commonly supported on piles. Introducing piles under machine foundation
pedestals in many cases will reduce the vertical induced vibrations in the soil
continuum, and will limit the vertical dynamic amplitude response, thus
achieving acceptable foundation dynamic performance.

Vertical dynamic forces in all piles

In some cases, additional piles are added for the purpose of increasing the
natural frequency of the machine foundation system, and consequently
avoiding the resonance conditions under the steady-state operation of the
machine and during machine ramp-up and coast-down periods. Soil-pile
interactions under dynamic loading modify the pile stiffness, making it
frequency dependent, as well as generating geometric damping. In addition,
the effect of the soil conditions, pile length, pile compressive strength, pile
spacing and pile tip condition will influence the dynamic stiffness and
damping of pile.

Additional complexity of the soil-pile interaction problem is modeling the soil

domain, since the soil unbounded domain has to be truncated to a finite size.
In static analysis, simple boundary conditions are introduced at a sufficient
distance from the structure, usually in the range of 3 to 5 times the soil depth.
Thus, the unbounded soil system is converted into a bounded system. This
truncation process is not applicable in a soil dynamic application, since the
elastic waves produced by the dynamic excitation of the system will be
reflected back to the foundation pile system from the truncated rigid
boundary. In reality, waves emitted from the dynamic excitation should pass
through the boundary toward infinity without reflecting back into the dynamic
system.