NUMERICAL ANALYSIS OF SINGULAR GROUND DEFORMATION FOCUSING ON RATE DEPENDENT PROPERTY AND VELOCITY OF FORCED DISPLACEMENT

Abstract

 A series of numerical analyses of singular ground deformation is carried out, focusing on the relation between the rate dependent property of the ground and the velocity of forced sharing displacement. We modeled the ground by the generalized Maxwell model, and we set a potential discontinuity in the ground and modeled it by the X-FEM. Then, for various speeds of the uplift of the base rock we examined whether a shearing failure would occur along the potential discontinuity or, instead, a viscoelastic deformation would dominate. The results show that if the ground is subjected to a forced displacement of a half of its thickness, a sharing failure probably occurs when the displacement is applied with a speed that takes time equal to or shorter than the relaxation time, and that a continuous viscoelastic deformation would dominate only when the forced displacement is applied with more sufficiently slow speed.