Coupled experimental and numerical approaches in bender element testing of geomaterials

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Bender element testing of geomaterials involves inducing a shear wave at one end of a sample (the input signal) and reading its arrival at the other end (the output signal). As compared to resonant columns, bender elements are cheaper, flexible to install, easier to use and yield similar results. However, the wave propagation induced by bender elements is complex, hindering the standardization of the testing setup and the interpretation of the output signal. The research project CEN-DynaGeo (2018-22) aimed at coupling innovative experimental and numerical modelling techniques to advance the bender element testing of geomaterials. Frequency-insensitive hybrid-Trefftz finite elements, developed for solid and poro-elastodynamics, may be used to simulate and optimize test setups and for the automatic interpretation of the output signal. Setup optimization is aimed at minimizing the pollution of the output signal with compression waves, while preserving the legibility of the shear wave whose reading is the objective of the experiment. The automatic interpretation of the output signal is based on a fixed-point model updating technique, insensitive to local extrema, implemented into the novel, user-friendly computational platform GeoHyTE.

10th European Conference on Numerical Methods in Geotechnical Engineering (NUMGE2023)

2. Finite element, finite difference, discrete element, material point and other methods