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Computational Geomechanics and Hydraulic Structures pp 707–720Cite as

Fundamentals of the Composite Element Method

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Abstract

This chapter summarizes the principles related to the composite element method (CEM), which is one of the most promising computational methods in handling discontinuities, bolts, drainage holes, and cooling pipes explicitly to give their detailed description using simple computation mesh. The FE mesh should be generated beforehand to discretize the structure concerned, where the deployment and size of finite elements are dominated by the structure configuration and the gradient of basic variables (displacement, hydraulic potential, temperature). A certain number of sub-elements representing heterogeneous components (joints, bolts, draining holes, cooling pipes) are allocated within an element (standard or hierarchical) that is named as the composite element. The basic variables within each sub-element are interpolated from the correspondent nodal variables bound at the composite element. According to the virtual work or variational principle, the governing equations are established to solve these basic variables. In this manner, less restraint is imposed on the mesh generation with considerable amount of heterogeneous components, which allows for a great simplification in the pre-process work towards the computation for complex hydraulic structures.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Water Resources and Hydropower Engineering, Wuhan University, Wuhan, Hubei, P.R. China

    Sheng-hong Chen

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Chen, Sh. (2019). Fundamentals of the Composite Element Method. In: Computational Geomechanics and Hydraulic Structures. Springer Tracts in Civil Engineering . Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-8135-4_14

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-8135-4_14

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