Numerical modeling and validation for 3D coupled-nonlinear thermo-hydro-mechanical problems in masonry dams

摘要

We introduce in this article a fully coupled thermo-hydro-mechanical (THM) model describing the physical phenomenon present in masonry materials. A series of 3D numerical simulations are carried out for the THM analysis of a dam during its impounding process. The results of the coupled THM analyzes are validated with measurements recorded during that process in terms of transient displacement, pore water pressure and temperature values. An agreement between numerical simulations and measured data proves that the coupled THM model can well reproduce the multi-physical behavior of masonry dams. Furthermore, we introduce herein a solution for a large system of balance equations by combining parallel computation, storage in Compressed Sparse Row format, and iterative pre-conditioned Conjugate Gradient Squared method in order to improve the computational cost. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.