Computers and Geotechnics 38 (2011) 30–39

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Computers and Geotechnics

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/compgeo

Application of a Coupled Eulerian–Lagrangian approach on geomechanical

problems involving large deformations
Gang Qiu ⇑, Sascha Henke, Jürgen Grabe
Hamburg University of Technology, Institute for Geotechnical Engineering and Construction Management, Harburger Schloßstraße 20, D-21079 Hamburg, Germany

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Geotechnical boundary value problems involving large deformations are often difficult to solve using the
Received 6 April 2010 classical finite element method. Large mesh distortions and contact problems can occur due to the large
Received in revised form 28 July 2010 deformations such that a convergent solution cannot be achieved. Since Abaqus, Version 6.8, a new Cou-
Accepted 10 September 2010
pled Eulerian–Lagrangian (CEL) approach has been developed to overcome the difficulties with regard to
finite element method and large deformation analyses. This new method is investigated regarding its
capabilities. First, a benchmark test, a strip footing problem is investigated and compared to analytical
Keywords:
solutions and results of comparable finite element analyses. This benchmark test shows that CEL is well
Coupled Eulerian–Lagrangian
Geomechanics
suited to deal with problems which cannot be fully solved using FEM. In further applications the CEL
Hypoplasticity approach is applied to more complex geotechnical boundary value problems. First, the installation of a
Large deformations pile into subsoil is simulated. The pile is jacked into the ground and the results received from these anal-
Pile jacking yses are compared to results of classical finite element simulations. A second case study is the simulation
Ship grounding of a ship running aground at an embankment. The results of the CEL simulation are compared to in situ
Strip footing benchmark measurement data. Finally, the capabilities of the new CEL approach are evaluated regarding its robust-
ness and efficiency.
Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
In recent years, the finite element method has been considered
the main tool for solving geotechnical problems. For example, a
three-dimensional FE-simulation of a quay wall in service at the port
of Hamburg has been done by [1]. Regarding exceptional load cases
like collision of a ship with the quay wall the construction may reach
its limit state. In such cases large deformations of the soil and the
structure can occur. Application of the classical finite element meth-
od to solve such boundary value problems is difficult regarding large
mesh distortions. Another application with large deformations in
geotechnical engineering is the analysis of pile penetration into
the subsoil. Several researchers investigated the pile penetration
process using the classical finite element method [2–7]. However,
the friction coefficient l between pile and soil is limited to a small
value (0.0–0.2) [4,8]. It is evident that the finite element method
has many disadvantages when solving geotechnical problems with
large deformations. Especially contact problems and large mesh dis-
tortions may occur so that a convergent solution often cannot be
found. A possible numerical approach to overcome the limitations
⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: g.qiu@tuhh.de (G. Qiu).
of the classical finite element method may be the discrete element
method [9,10]. At first glance, it is well suited to simulate granular
materials like soil because each particle can be modeled in the
numerical simulation. However, the method is not appropriate for
boundary value problems with large dimensions as presented in this
paper due to the large number of discrete elements which are nec-
essary. Otherwise, the numerical model has to be scaled such that
it is very difficult to calibrate the numerical model [11]. Therefore,
in this contribution a Coupled Eulerian–Lagrangian approach which
is well suited to solve geomechanical boundary value problems
involving large deformations is presented. Some benchmark tests
show the capabilities of this approach compared to classical finite
element simulations. Afterwards, two case studies with difficult to
solve boundary value problems are presented and compared to
in situ measurement data and finite element simulation results.
2. Numerical method
The use of classical FE methods that are based on a Lagrangian
formulation often leads to contact problems and distortion of the
FE-mesh. To deal with these problems the Coupled Eulerian–
Lagrangian method (CEL) [12] came into consideration. Qiu et al.
[13] analyzed two benchmarks of geotechnical problems using
the CEL-method and concluded that it is well suited to solve
geotechnical problems involving large deformations.

0266-352X/$ - see front matter Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.compgeo.2010.09.002
 G. Qiu et al. / Computers and Geotechnics 38 (2011) 30–39
2.1. Lagrangian and Eulerian description
There are two ways to describe the movement of a small volu-
metric element as a function of time: the Lagrangian description
and the Eulerian description (see Fig. 1).
Lagrangian description: The movement of the continuum is spec-
ified as a function of the material coordinates and time. This is a
particle description that is often applied in solid mechanics. In sim-
ulations using the Lagrangian formulation, the nodes of the
Lagrangian mesh move together with the material. Therefore, the
interface between two parts is precisely tracked and defined. In
these simulations large deformations may lead to an unpromising
mesh and large element distortions.
Eulerian description: The movement of the continuum is speci-
fied as a function of the spatial coordinate and time. It is a field
description that is often applied in fluid mechanics. In the Eulerian
analysis, an Eulerian reference mesh which remains undistorted is
needed to trace the motion of the material in the Eulerian domain.
Materials can move freely through an Eulerian mesh. The advan-
tage of the Eulerian formulation is that no element distortions oc-
cur; the disadvantage is that numerical diffusion can happen in
case of two or more materials in the Eulerian domain.
2.2. Coupled Eulerian–Lagrangian (CEL) method
A Coupled Eulerian–Lagrangian (CEL) method that attempts to
capture the advantages both of the Lagrangian and the Eulerian
method is implemented in Abaqus [14]. In numerical analyses
using this CEL method the Eulerian material is tracked as it flows
through the mesh by computing its Eulerian volume fraction
(EVF). Each Eulerian element is designated a percentage, which
represents the portion of that element filled with a material. If
an Eulerian element is completely filled with a material, its EVF
is 1; if there is no material in the element, its EVF is 0. Contact be-
tween Eulerian materials and Lagrangian materials is enforced
using a general contact that is based on a penalty contact method.
A general contact algorithm does not enforce contact between the
Lagrangian elements and the Eulerian elements. The Lagrangian
elements can move through the Eulerian mesh without resistance
until they encounter an Eulerian element filled with material
(EVF – 0).
2.2.1. Time integration scheme
The CEL method implemented in Abaqus/Explicit [14] uses an
explicit time integration scheme. The central difference rule is em-
ployed for the solution of the non-linear system of differential
equations. The unknown solution for the next time step can be
found directly from the solution of the previous time step, such
that no iteration is needed. Another advantage of choosing an
Lagrangian analysis Eulerian analysis
Fig. 1. Deformation of a continuum in a Lagrangian (left) and an Eulerian analysis
(right).
31
explicit time integration scheme for the present problem is the
robustness regarding difficult contact conditions.
Explicit calculations are not stringently stable. Numerical stabil-
ity is guaranteed by introduction of the critical time step size D tcrit
which depends on the characteristic element length Le and the dil-
atory wave speed cd. The critical time step size is calculated in
every time step via
Le
Dtcrit ¼ : ð1Þ
cd
Eq. (1) reveals that the waves in the model can propagate through
one element per time step at most. In [15] it has been stated that
non-linear simulations are stable if the critical time step size is kept
equal in all steps. Due to different stiffnesses during loading and
unloading it needs to be mentioned that in every time step at least
one wrong critical time step size is calculated. During the CEL sim-
ulations it became evident that the critical time step size has to be
reduced by a factor of about 0.1 to receive a stable solution.
2.2.2. Penalty contact method
By using the CEL method the contact between Eulerian domain
and Lagrangian domain is discretized using the general contact
algorithm, which is based on the penalty contact method. The pen-
alty contact method is less stringent compared to the kinematic
contact method. Seeds are created on the Lagrangian element
edges and faces while anchor points are created on the Eulerian
material surface. The penalty method approximates hard pres-
sure–overclosure behavior. This method allows small penetration
of the Eulerian material into the Lagrangian domain. The contact
force FP which is enforced between seeds and anchor points is pro-
portional to the penetration distance dP.
F P ¼ kP d P ð2Þ
The factor kP is the penalty stiffness which depends on the Lagrang-
ian and Eulerian material properties.
3. Benchmark test: Strip footing problem
In this section, a strip footing problem is described, see Fig. 2.
This plane strain problem has been analytically solved by [16]
using the slip line theory. According to [16] the maximum punch
pressure for this problem with a ratio d/D = 0.5 (see Fig. 2) can
be calculated with
p ¼ ð2 þ pÞc ð3Þ
p
smooth
rough
d=2m
4m
Drucker-Prager
Material
D=4m
Fig. 2. Geometry of the investigated strip footing problem.
32 G. Qiu et al. / Computers and Geotechnics 38 (2011) 30–39

where c is the shear strength of the soil which is described using a b

DRUCKER–PRAGER material. The material parameters used in the numer-
ical simulations are depicted in Table 1. The side of the footing is

h
modeled smooth, whereas the base is rough. The footing, which
penetrates into a cohesive but weightless soil with the dimension

2m
4 m  4 m, has a width of 2 m and a height of 1 m. The strip footing
is discretized as a rigid body. Therefore, it does not experience any
deformations during penetration. b [m] h [m]
mesh A 0.25 0.25
3.1. Mesh dependency of the CEL-method mesh B 0.125 0.125
mesh C 0.0625 0.0625
mesh D 0.03125 0.03125
A set of preliminary calculations for the strip footing problem is

4m
carried out to study the dependency of the solution on the mesh
density using the CEL-method. Four meshes with different coarse-
nesses are used (see Fig. 3). The 8-noded linear multi-material brick
element with reduced integration is the only available Eulerian
element in Abaqus. Therefore, the penetration process must be sim-
ulated three-dimensionally. Three-dimensional Eulerian elements 2m
are used to discretize the soil body, while 4-noded bilinear quadri-
lateral rigid elements are used to discretize the foundation. The
Fig. 3. FE-mesh to simulate the strip footing problem.
plane strain problem is approximated using a one-element thick
mesh. The thickness of the Eulerian and the Lagrangian elements
is set to 1 m. The shape of the elements is quadratic (ratio width

Normalized punch pressure p/c [-]

8
to height is 1). The Eulerian mesh does not generally correspond
7
to the geometry of the soil body; in contrast, the placement of the
soil material within the Eulerian mesh defines its geometry. The 6
Eulerian domain must extend over the geometry of the soil body.
5
The first 2 m of the Eulerian domain are modeled material-free
(void) at the beginning of the simulation to contain the soil material 4
as it deforms. Below these 2 m four meters of the Eulerian domain is 3
filled with soil material.
2
The load–displacement curves for different degrees of the mesh A
mesh B
coarseness of the FE-mesh are shown in Fig. 4. It can be seen that 1 mesh C
mesh D
the normalized punch pressure of the foundation depends on the 0
mesh coarseness. The punch pressures increase with increasing 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
penetration depth up to approximately 0.05 m. With further pene- Punch indentation [m]
tration the punch pressures remain constant. The maximum bear-
ing capacity converges with reducing element size. Thus, mesh C is Fig. 4. Load–displacement curves for the penetration of a strip footing into a
cohesive soil subject to the coarseness of the FE-mesh.
selected for the following calculations for accuracy and efficiency
of the calculations.
Normalized pundch pressure p/c [-]

7
3.2. Comparison with other numerical methods
6
The plane strain problem is modeled two-dimensionally using 5
the FE-method with an implicit- and an explicit-solution algo-
rithm. The subsoil is meshed with 4-noded bilinear plane strain 4
elements with reduced integration, while the foundation is
3
meshed with 2-noded linear rigid elements. The element size is
set to 0.0625  0.0625 m. 2
The load–displacement curves which are obtained from these π+2
1 Pure Implicit
comparative analyses are depicted in Fig. 5. The maximum reaction Pure Explicit
Explicit with CEL
force is reached at a punch indentation of less than 0.1 m in all 0
analyses. The agreement between numerical solutions and the ana- 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5
lytical solution is very satisfactory. The differences remain within Punch indentation [m]
8%. After reaching a maximum reaction force the solution of the
Fig. 5. Load–displacement curves for penetration of a strip footing into a cohesive
CEL-analysis remains nearly constant, whereas the solution of the soil subject to different solution algorithms.
implicit- and the explicit simulations increase continuously. Gen-
erally the ‘after-peak’ behavior depends both on the material soft-
case, that the ‘after-peak’ behavior also depends on the used
ening and on the element size [17]. It can be concluded from this
numerical method.
The increasing reaction force in the implicit and explicit analy-
Table 1 ses can be explained by stress peaks at the corner of the footing,
Material parameters for the strip footing problem. see [13]. This corner is well known as singular plasticity point. As
Parameter G (kPa) m (–) c (kPa) shown in Fig. 6, the velocity gradient near the corner of the footing
is very high. The soil is pushed down, slips sideways and then
Value 1000 0.49 10
moves upwards. The velocity field is not uniquely defined. The
 G. Qiu et al. / Computers and Geotechnics 38 (2011) 30–39
Pure Implicit Pure Explicit Explicit with CEL
Fig. 6. Velocity field of the strip footing problem after a punch indentation of 0.5 m
for the three investigated numerical methods.
velocity gradient is too high to be simulated using the implicit
method. The soil nearby the corner can only move downward
and then moves sideways. An upward motion cannot be derived
from Fig. 6. Regarding the explicit analysis the element at the edge
of the footing is distorted extremely. An upward motion can also
not be found for this type of analysis. Due to the observed distorted
elements no stress concentration at the edge of the footing occurs.
The CEL-method is able to overcome the restrictions of the purely
Lagrangian analyses.
This benchmark test shows that CEL is well suited to solve geotech-
nical problems involving large deformations which cannot be fully
solved using the classical finite element method. In [13] another
example of pulling out an anchor plate is examined and also shows
the capabilities of the Coupled Eulerian–Lagrangian approach.
4. Simulation of pile jacking
4.1. Introduction
In this section jacking of a circular pile with a diameter of
d = 30 cm into dry granular soil is investigated using CEL. Espe-
cially, the influence of pile jacking on the surrounding soil (e.g. void
ratio and stress state) is analyzed and compared with results re-
ceived from classical finite element calculations [4,8,18].
In these finite element calculations, the pile is modeled as a ri-
gid body such that it does not experience any deformations during
installation. To avoid large mesh distortions at the beginning of the
simulation the pile is modeled approximately 40 cm pre-installed.
To allow penetration into the finite element continuum a zipper-
type technique is used. This technique has been developed by [2]
for axisymmetric analyses and was enhanced by [6] to allow
three-dimensional analyses of pile installation. The penetration
of piles with various cross-sections into a three-dimensional con-
tinuum was modeled by [7,8,18]. The zipper-type technique can
be explained as follows: In the axis of penetration a rigid tube with
a diameter t = 1 mm is discretized which is in frictionless contact
with the surrounding soil. During penetration the pile slides over
Table 2
Hypoplastic parameters of Mai-Liao sand.
Parameter uc (°) hs (MPa) n (–)
Value 31.5 32 0.324
Parameter R (–) mR (–)
Value 1  104 5.0
33
the tube and separates the soil from the tube such that contact
can be established between pile and surrounding soil and the pile
can penetrate into the continuum.
4.2. Numerical modeling
4.2.1. Contact formulation
The contact between soil and pile is discretized using Abaqus’
built-in kinematic contact formulation based on a master-slave-
principle. Therefore, this is an surface-to-surface based approach
which means that the non-deformable pile represents the master
surface whereas the deformable soil forms the slave surface. A pen-
alty approach is used in this formulation. The Coulomb friction law
is used as a contact law. Unless otherwise noted all calculations are
performed using a friction coefficient of d = 1/3u. It is evident that
this contact formulation does not allow for dilatancy and contrac-
tancy of the soil in the contact zone. Comparative analyses con-
ducted using a hypoplastic contact formulation [19] show that
compared to calculations using Coulomb friction law the differ-
ences with regard to horizontal stresses and void ratio are mainly
located directly at the pile shaft. In a distance of a few centimeters
these differences become negligible.
4.2.2. Constitutive model
This study investigates the penetration into non-cohesive, gran-
ular materials like sand. For this purpose the analysis for the soil is
based on the constitutive equation of hypoplasticity after Gudehus
and von Wolffersdorff [20,21]. Hypoplasticity suits well the non-
linear and anelastic behavior of granular materials. The constitutive
law is consistent with mechanical soil properties like dilatancy, con-
tractancy, dependency of stiffness on stress state and void ratio and
different stiffnesses for loading and unloading. Due to the different
stiffnesses for loading and unloading typical effects like different
wave velocities of the loading or unloading front for the numerical
simulation of wave propagation can be simulated with the hypo-
plastic constitutive model. This characteristic has been investigated
by [22,8] who studied the wave propagation in hypoplastic media
and found typical effects like shock fronts to occur. The hypoplastic
constitutive model describes accurately compaction processes.
Especially the dependency on void ratio in the constitutive model
allows for a realistic simulation of compaction processes. Due to this
dependency wave energy can be dissipated into compaction of the
surrounding soil [22,4] during the analyses. Constitutive models
which do not take into account the dependency of stiffness on void
ratio lead to implausible results for pile penetration simulations
[13].
The rate dependent formulation depends on the current stress
state T and the void ratio e. In order to model the accumulation ef-
fects and the hysteretic material behavior under cyclic loading Nie-
munis and Herle proposed the intergranular strain d [23]. This
enhancement is used in the present study. Pore pressure effects
have not been taken into account.
In all analyses dealing with pile jacking the hypoplastic param-
eters of medium dense Mai-Liao sand after [24] are considered, see
Table 2. The void ratio distribution depends on the current stress
state such that a depth-dependent void ratio distribution is consid-
ered in the numerical simulations.
ed0 (–) ec0 (–) ei0 (–) a (–) b (–)
0.57 1.04 1.20 0.40 1.00
mT (–) br (–) v (–)
2.0 0.50 6.0
34 G. Qiu et al. / Computers and Geotechnics 38 (2011) 30–39

pile, d = 30 cm,
material flow into this region during the penetration process. In
discrete rigid body contrast to the finite element simulations mentioned in Section
4.1 the pile is located above the soil surface such that the whole
penetration process including the first penetration into the subsoil
can be simulated. The penetration process is modeled displace-

2m
euler region,
material-free ment-controlled prescribing the final penetration depth.

4.3. Comparison with finite element results

In Fig. 8 the contour plots of void ratio and radial stress state
after 5 m of pile jacking into medium dense Mai-Liao sand [24]
are depicted.
Regarding these results it can be stated that the soil is com-
pacted in the near field around the penetrating pile. Directly at

10 m
euler region,
material-filled
the pile shaft the void ratio increases due to dilatancy. This result
is in good correlation with finite element results in [4,8].
An interesting phenomenon which cannot be simulated using
classical finite element method is that the soil at the ground sur-
face is loosened. During the first centimeters of penetration the soil
around the penetrating pile is pushed aside and towards the sur-
face such that an uplift can be noticed. Due to this displacement
5m

the soil is loosened. It is not possible to simulate this phenomenon

5m
Fig. 7. Geometry and Eulerian mesh of the model used for analyzing jacking of a
circular pile with a diameter of d = 30 cm into dry granular soil.
4.2.3. Coupled Eulerian–Lagrangian discretization
The pile with a diameter of d = 30 cm is discretized as a discrete
rigid body such that the pile does not experience any deformations
during penetration. The numerical model is meshed with 8-noded
linear multi-material brick elements with reduced integration. The
soil body consists of 112,064 Eulerian elements with 120,695
nodes. The element size in combination with the critical time step
size ensures that at most one wave length can pass through one
element in every time increment, see Eq. (1). The dimensions and
the Eulerian mesh are depicted in Fig. 7.
The first two meters of the continuum are modeled material-
free at the beginning of the simulation. This is necessary to allow
using classical finite element simulations because of the pre-instal-
lation of the pile to avoid large mesh distortions. Using the new
CEL approach it is now possible to simulate the complete penetra-
tion process including the first penetration into the subsoil. Fur-
thermore, regarding the radial stress state around the pile (see
Fig. 8, right) it can be concluded that high stresses occur at the pile
toe. At the pile shaft the radial stresses increase significantly com-
pared to the K0-stress state at the beginning due to the jacking pro-
cess. These results are also in good agreement with results in [4,8].
A more detailed comparison with the results of three-dimen-
sional finite element calculations in [8] can be seen in Fig. 9. The
configuration of these finite element simulations resembles the
Coupled Eulerian–Lagrangian analysis of pile jacking into medium
dense Mai-Liao sand in this contribution. The friction in both anal-
yses is set to d = 1/3u.
In Fig. 9 the void ratio distribution along two horizontal paths in
1.0 m and 3.0 m depth is depicted for the finite element and the
CEL-analysis.
Regarding these results it can be stated that there is good agree-
ment between the finite element and the CEL results. Directly at

void ratio radial stress

[-] [kN/m²]

loosening

dilatancy

compaction

Fig. 8. Contour plots of void ratio distribution (left) and radial stress state (right) after 5 m of pile jacking into medium dense Mai-Liao sand (d = 1/3u).
 G. Qiu et al. / Computers and Geotechnics 38 (2011) 30–39 35

0.9 0.8
1.0 m depth/FEM 3.0 m depth/FEM
0.85 1.0 m depth/CEL 3.0 m depth/CEL
0.75

void ratio [-]

void ratio [-]

0.8
0.7
0.75

0.7 0.65

0.65 0.6
0 5 10 0 5 10
normalized dist. from pile r/D [-] normalized dist. from pile r/D [-]

Fig. 9. Comparison of finite element and CEL results for the void ratio distribution along horizontal paths in 1 m (left) and 3 m depth (right) after 4 m of pile jacking into
medium dense Mai-Liao sand.

100 100
2.0 m depth/FEM 3.0 m depth/FEM
radial stresses [kN/m²]

radial stresses [kN/m²]

80 2.0 m depth/CEL 80 3.0 m depth/CEL

60 60

40 40

20 20

0 0
0 10 20 30 0 10 20 30
normalized dist. from pile r/D [-] normalized dist. from pile r/D [-]

Fig. 10. Comparison of finite element and CEL results for the radial stress distribution along horizontal paths in 2 m (left) and 3 m depth (right) after 4 m of pile jacking into
medium dense Mai-Liao sand.

the pile shaft the void ratio increases due to dilatancy. In further
distance from the pile the soil experiences compaction. The area
of influence regarding the void ratio distribution is about five to
ten times the pile diameter.
In Fig. 10 the radial stress distribution received from the CEL
calculation in different depths is compared to finite element results
in [8].
It can be stated that beside the void ratio distribution the radial
stress distribution also shows very good accordance between finite
element and CEL results. The radial stresses increase significantly
around the penetrating pile due to displacement of the surround-
ing soil. Even quantitatively the results are in very good
accordance.
Evaluating these results it can be said that the Coupled Euleri-
an–Lagrangian simulation of pile jacking leads to similar results
as finite element calculations which can be found in literature
[4,8,18]. These finite element calculations are validated by compar-
ison with in situ measurement data such that it can be concluded
that the CEL approach is also well suited to investigate the influ-
ence of pile installation on the surrounding soil or adjacent struc-
tures for example.
5. Simulation of ship grounding
5.1. Introduction
The increasing occurrence of shipping accidents, such as ships
running aground, threatens the safety of freights and ships [25].
In addition, during the last century there has been an increase in
frequency of ships colliding with bridges spanning over inland
waterways [26]. Due to the dramatic increase in dead weight load
and the speed of inland ships, the old bridges over inland water-
ways are at risk.
Meier-Dörnberg [27] undertook theoretical and experimental
studies to determine the collisional force and the stopping distance
of a grounding ship. His studies are based on the principle of con-
servation of momentum as well as the assumption of a rigid
embankment. However, accident damage analyses have shown
that ships always penetrate the banks of waterways [28]. A predic-
tion of the path of penetration is impossible using the theory after
[27]. In order to develop models to predict impact force and stop-
ping distance as a function of the ship’s velocity as well as the bow
types of the ship and the geometry of the embankment, small scale
model tests [28] and field tests [29] were performed by the BAW
(Federal Waterways Engineering and Research Institute, Germany).
A 3D FE model using a Coupled Eulerian–Lagrangian approach is
used to recalculate the collision experiment of the BAW with the
test ship ‘‘Gerda”.
5.2. Numerical modeling
The test ship ‘‘Gerda” has a width of B = 8 m and an overall
length of L = 66.5 m. With a draught of h0 = 1.9 m, it has a tonnage
of m = 900 t. In order to save computational time only half of the
bow is simulated. The geometry and mesh of the bow are shown
in Fig. 11. The ship is modeled as a discrete rigid body using
4-noded bilinear quadrilateral elements. The center of mass is lo-
cated in the middle of the ship and 0.5 m from the bottom. This
ship has an initial velocity of 2.64 m/s and is running aground on
a gravel sand embankment with an inclination of 1:3.
36 G. Qiu et al. / Computers and Geotechnics 38 (2011) 30–39

u α
h0

2.9
X
Z
view from the left
kz kα

Fig. 13. Simplification of the buoyancy behavior using a linear spring (left) and a

1.3
Bo

torsional spring (right).

De

tto
ck

1
contact elements. The ‘‘general contact” algorithm with the fi-
nite-sliding formulation, which allows arbitrary motion of the sur-

0.7
Y
X
face, is well suited to simulate highly non-linear processes with

1
large deformations. The frictional behavior between soil and ship
0.73 0.94 3.25 3.25 is described using the linear-elastic, ideal plastic formulation sta-
ted by Coulomb. According to the results of shear tests conducted
by the BAW, the friction angle d between ship and embankment is
top view
determined to be 32°, which leads to a friction coefficient of
Fig. 11. Geometry and mesh of the sharp bow of the ship ‘‘Gerda”; unit (m). tand = 0.62.
Kauther and Schuppener [28] investigated the buoyancy behav-
ior of different ship types. From their work it can be concluded that
X it is sufficient and appropriate to simplify the ship geometry by
Y using a cuboid to estimate changes in buoyancy. As long as the
Z void ship’s bow is not lifted too far out of the water the correlation be-
1

tween the moment of buoyancy and the pitch angle can be fitted
4

by a linear function. In the simulations for the present study the

water is not taken into account. In order to take buoyancy into ac-
1:3 count, one linear spring in the vertical direction and one torsional
25

spring are assembled in the centroid (reference point) of the ship

soil (see Fig. 13).
The motion of a rigid ship can be divided into translation and
rotation. The translational part of the buoyancy Fu can be calcu-
lated by
50 mg
30 Fu ¼ u ð4Þ
15 h0
5
where m is the mass of the ship, h0 is the draught and u is the trans-
lation of the ship in vertical direction. Then the spring constant kz in
Fig. 12. Geometry and mesh of the embankment; unit (m). vertical direction is given by
mg
The embankment is modeled as an Eulerian domain, which is kz ¼ ð5Þ
meshed using 8-noded linear multi-material brick elements with h0
reduced integration. The Eulerian domain is divided into two parts: The moment of the rotational part of the buoyancy Ma can be calcu-
the initial soil material and the absence of material (void) (see lated by
Fig. 12). The water table is 1.0 m below the top of the embankment.
Pore water pressure is not taken into account. The gravel sand has BL3
M a ¼ cw a ð6Þ
a specific weight of q = 24.6 kN/m3 and an effective unit weight of 12
q0 = 14.6 kN/m3. After Jaky [30], the initial lateral stress coefficient where cw is the unit weight of the water, B is the width, L is the
K0 is set to 0.42 for the gravel sand with a friction angle uc of 36°. length and a the rotation angle of the ship. This can be converted to
The calculations in this paper are based on the hypoplastic con-
stitutive law in the version of von Wolffersdorf [21] with the ex- mgL2
Ma ¼ a ð7Þ
tended concept of intergranular strain [23]. The hypoplastic 12h0
parameters to simulate the gravel sand can be found in Table 3. As long as the ship’s bow is not lifted too far out of the water, the
The contact between the soil material in the Eulerian domain torsional spring constant ka is given by
and the ship meshed with Lagrangian elements is described using
the ‘‘general contact” algorithm, which enforces the use of the pen- mgL2
ka ¼ ð8Þ
alty contact method. This contact method works without discrete 12h0

Table 3
Hypoplastic parameters of the Hochstetten gravel after [24].

Parameter uc(°) hs (MPa) n (–) ed0 (–) ec0 (–) ei0 (–) a (–) b (–)
Value 36 32,000 0.18 0.26 0.45 0.50 0.10 1.80
Parameter R (–) mR (–) mT (–) br (–) v (–)
Value 1  104 5.0 2.0 0.50 6.0
 G. Qiu et al. / Computers and Geotechnics 38 (2011) 30–39 37

X
Y
Z

Fig. 14. Contour plot of vertical stress distribution and deformation of the embankment at the end of the collision.

5.3. Results and comparison with in situ test data
Fig. 14 shows the contour plot of vertical stress distribution at
the end position after the collision. An increase of vertical stress
is clearly visible under the bottom of the bow. During the collision
the ship penetrates into the embankment. The soil is moved up-
wards and sideways as a result.
In the field test, accelerations in the horizontal and vertical
direction are measured using two sensors, which are assembled
at the bow and stern of the ship ‘‘Gerda”. The positions of the accel-
erometers are shown in Fig. 15. From the measured acceleration
the displacement of the contact point and the contact force are
identified as shown by Schuppener et al. [29]. The results from
Fig. 15. Positions of accelerometers in the field test; unit (m).
5
hor. disp. FEM
vert. disp. FEM
hor. disp. exp.
4 vert. disp. exp.
Displacement [m]
the numerical simulation are compared with the results from the
experiment in Figs. 16 and 17.
As can be seen from Fig. 16, the numerical results agree well
with the measured displacements of the contact point. After the
collision the ship stops within 3 s. According to the results of the
field test the final stopping distance is 3.83 m in the horizontal
direction and 0.85 m in the vertical direction. The numerical simu-
lation shows a final stopping distance of 3.96 m in the horizontal
direction and 0.77 m in the vertical direction. Using the analytical
method after Meier-Dörnberg [27] a horizontal stopping distance
of 3.10 m and a vertical stopping distance of 0.99 m are calculated.
The prediction of the numerical solution is more accurate than the
theoretical solution in this case (see Table 4).
During the first 0.5 s, the vertical displacements are close to
zero (see Fig. 16). This means that the ship first penetrates horizon-
tally into the soil after contact with the embankment. The assump-
tion of a rigid bank after Meier-Dörnberg [27] is inappropriate. It
leads to underestimation of the horizontal displacement of the ship
and overestimation of its vertical displacement.
Fig. 17 shows the contact forces predicted by the numerical
simulation and from the experiment. It can be determined from
both, that the maximum contact force in the vertical and horizon-
tal direction is about 1200 kN. Good agreement can be observed for
the vertical contact forces of the numerical results and the exper-
imental data. The curves of horizontal contact force show some
discrepancies. In the numerical model the ship is discretized as a
rigid body. Therefore, the reaction calculated by the FE solution
is much more vigorous compared to the field test in the first sec-
ond of the collision. Afterwards the reaction force consists of the
passive earth pressure from the embankment and the friction be-
tween the ship and the soil. The kinetic energy decreases with

increasing penetration distance until the ship stops.

3

6. Parallelization of the CEL approach

2

Regarding the two geomechanical boundary value problems the

1
parallelization of the CEL approach is investigated. The calculations
are carried out with up to 16 cores on the Linux cluster HALI at the
0 Hamburg University of Technology. The Linux cluster consists of
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5
AMD Opteron quad core processors with 2.3 GHz frequency and
Time [s]
2 MB L3 cache. Each node of the cluster provides 8 GB RAM. In
Fig. 16. Comparision of contact point displacements from numerical analyses and the calculations of pile jacking the soil is modeled in a three-
experimental data according to BAW. dimensional Eulerian continuum consisting of 112,064 elements
38 G. Qiu et al. / Computers and Geotechnics 38 (2011) 30–39

1600 1600

1400 FEM 1400 FEM

experiment experiment
Horizontal Force Fx [kN]

Vertical Force Fz [kN]

1200 1200

1000 1000

800 800

600 600

400 400

200 200

0 0
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5
Time [s] Time [s]

Fig. 17. Comparison of the horizontal and vertical contact force from FEM simulation with experimental data according to BAW.

Table 4 decomposition algorithm becomes more efficient with increasing

Measured and calculated stopping distance of the ship ‘‘Gerda”.
number of elements.
Stopping distance (m)
Horizontal sx,max vertical sz,max 7. Conclusion
Experiment [29] 3.83 0.85
CEL 3.96 0.77 According to the calculated benchmark problems it can be con-
Meier-Dörnberg [27] 3.10 0.99 cluded that the CEL-method is well suited to solve geotechnical
problems with large deformations of the soil body and the interact-
ing structure. When solving soil-structure-interaction problems
singular plasticity points often can be found at the edge of the
16 structures. The free deformable soil in an Eulerian domain over-
optimum
14 pile jacking comes the impacts of the singular plasticity points automatically.
ship grounding
With respect to the CEL method in Abaqus the value of EVF is cal-
12
culated for every Eulerian element to trace the Eulerian material. It
SpeedUp [-]

10 can be shown that the numerical solution depends on the coarse-

8 ness of the Eulerian mesh. An ‘after-peak’ behavior [17] cannot
6
4 size. In contrast, the ‘after-peak’ behavior can clearly be found
2 using the FE-method with an implicit- or explicit-solution algo-
0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16
Number of cores [-]
Fig. 18. SpeedUp factors for the simulations with CEL-method.
and 120,695 nodes. A domain-decomposition parallelization algo-
rithm is used in all analyses using an MPI (Message Passing Inter-
face) parallel execution. For the ship grounding problem 27,370
elements and 29,976 nodes are counted in the numerical model.
Fig. 18 shows the calculated SpeedUp factor as function of the
number of cores for the two boundary value problems. The Speed-
Up-factor is defined as
T1
SpeedUpðmÞ ¼
Tm
where T1 is the execution time of the sequential algorithm, Tm is the
execution time of the parallel algorithm with m cores.
It can be seen from Fig. 18 that the quality of the parallelization
of the CEL approach is satisfactory. Especially in the calculation of
pile jacking the SpeedUp-factor is about four using 4 cores. Almost
optimal efficiency is reached. Overall it can be summarized that
regarding the pile jacking problem good efficiency of the parallel-
ization can be achieved with up to eight processors. The Speed-
Up-factor in the ship grounding analysis is not that high. This is
due to the lower number of elements in the model. The domain
be found in the presented analyses. With regard to the strip footing
problem the bearing capacity converges with decreasing element
rithm. The punch pressure still increases after the maximum reac-
tion pressure is reached.
Furthermore, the simulation of the pile jacking problem shows
the capabilities of CEL to simulate complex geotechnical problems
involving large deformations. There is good agreement between
the classical finite element and the CEL solutions. The rigid tube,
which is used in the classical finite element models to allow the
penetration of a pile into the soil continuum, is not necessary using
the CEL approach. Therefore, in future effects like pile drifting dur-
ing the penetration process can be investigated using CEL. More-
over, the installation process can begin directly at the surface of
the soil in the CEL simulations. A pre-installation of the pile as nec-
essary in the classical finite element simulations can be omitted.
Thus, the whole penetration process can be simulated using the
Coupled Eulerian–Lagrangian method. It is planned to compare
ð9Þ the CEL results with results received out of discrete element simu-
lations or simulations using meshless methods to evaluate the
capabilities of these different approaches.
High friction values between soil and structure often lead to
mesh distortion problems in classical finite element simulations.
A relative high friction coefficient of tand = 0.62 is used in the anal-
yses regarding the ship grounding problem. This high value of fric-
tion is no problem and does not lead to high mesh distortions
because of the freely deformable soil in the Eulerian domain. In fu-
ture work, the impact of other contact approaches like Augmented
Lagrange Method or the Lagrange multiplier technique will be
investigate.
 G. Qiu et al. / Computers and Geotechnics 38 (2011) 30–39
Finally, the parallelization of the CEL approach is judged to be
good regarding the two investigated boundary value problems.
Generally it can be stated that a larger number of elements leads
to a better efficiency of the parallelization.
Therefore, the presented Coupled Eulerian–Lagrangian ap-
proach can be regarded as a promising tool to overcome many of
the limitations which are connected to classical finite element sim-
ulations involving large deformations.
Acknowledgement
The present work has been funded by the German Research
Foundation (DFG) in the framework of the research training group
GRK 1096 ‘‘Ports for Container Ships of Future Generations”. The
authors thank the DFG for funding the work. Furthermore, the
authors appreciate the academic use of the commercial program
Abaqus.
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