Automatic digital-numerical integrated analysis by the image-based meshless method

Abstract The paper takes advantage of the digital images exported from the digital visualization models of geotechnical engineering and the meshless method based on Shepard function and Partition of Unity (MSPU) to develop a new solution for the automatic digital-numerical integrated analysis. The proposed method fully utilizes the information of pixels to substitute geometric models with digital images, which avoids complex and time-consuming computational geometry in conventional pre-processing procedure. A regular and structured mesh is adopted to cover the digital image and the central points of the rectangular elements are taken as the interpolation nodes to discrete the analysis domain. The paper introduces in detail the formulation of the corresponding MSPU interpolation, the treatments of interfaces between materials and the imposition of the displacement boundary conditions. The method possesses the merits of concise formulation, simple numerical implementation and high automation. The proposed method can reduce the high requirements to computational mechanics and professional numerical modeling skills for geotechnical engineers, and provide a new convenient means for automatic numerical analysis based on digital information model. Numerical examples including representative elastic problems and slope stability analysis indicate the high accuracy and wide prospect of the proposed method.

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