ZMG 608E - Numerical Methods in Geotechnical Engineering

Course Objectives

This course is an introduction to modeling and computing in Geotechnical Engineering and Geomechanics. The intention of the course is to provide students with state of the art analytical and computational methods for the analysis of complex civil engineering and in particular, geo-engineering problems. The objectives of the course are such that students acquire knowledge to analytically and numerically simulate various mechanical phenomena as observed in soil mechanics and foundation engineering. This will be achieved by developing a thorough understanding of the mechanics behind, providing numerical solutions to the boundary value problems and utilizing basic numerical methods. Computational techniques using the classical methods such as the Finite Element Method will be discussed in details and applied to basic geotechnical engineering problems encountered in practice.

Course Description

The course basically covers the mathematical and numerical modeling of soil and soil structure systems.
Some of the related topics are: 1-Analytical Methods (Applications to geotechnical engineering and soil mechanics);
2-Introduction to Numerical Methods, a) Finite Difference Method, b) Finite Element Method (FEM) fundamentals;
3- Applications of FEM to Geotechnical Engineering, solution of 1-2 Dimensional Flow and Deformation Problem;
4- It can be summarized as an introduction to Constitutive Modeling and Soil Theoretical Models.