A multiscale manifold method using particle representations of the physical domain

Abstract

Multiscale modelling has great advantages by simulating material behaviours on one level using information from another level. The popular multiscale methodology couples the atomistic/meso particle model with the continuum model (e.g., multiscale model by coupling molecular dynamics and finite element analysis). In this paper, a new multiscale method is proposed using the numerical manifold method (NMM) and its micro extension particle manifold method (PMM). Due to the same mathematical and mechanical scheme NMM and PMM adopt, their multiscale coupling has a uniform framework and does not need special treatment at the multiscale boundary. The proposed method has an advantage over PMM in presenting the material’s micro structure and failure description. It also saves the computational resource by using NMM to present the macro part. In the paper, the multiscale methodology is presented with some numerical demonstrations. It is proven that this novel multiscale manifold method is a good tool for analysis of geomaterials.

Keywords:

• numerical modelling
• manifold method
• geomaterial
• particle
• multiscale