Fast Finite Element Modeling Based on Geological Data of 3D Visualization Platform

Abstract:

With rapid developments in computer visualization and numerical analysis，3D geological modeling and finite element analysis have been widely applied to geotechnical engineering. The logical connection between 3D geological modeling and finite element modeling， however， hasn’t been ex-ploited efficiently， leading to a high workload and low modeling efficiency. Towards the problem， a fast finite element modeling method based on 3D geological survey data platform was developed. Based on limited boreholes and non-uniform data of boreholes， a visualization platform for strata mod-eling was established using Python programming language. In more detail， the inverse distance weighted (IDW) interpolation method and the Kriging method were employed to identify the interfac-es of soil layers， and then the topological relations between these interfaces were analyzed and opti-mized. With the aid of the concept of virtual boreholes， a data extraction method was proposed to con-vert the regional data of the 3D stratigraphic model into executable files of different commercial finite element software. Taking Plaxis-3D as an example， rapid finite element modeling and analysis for dif-ferent partitions of the same large-scale site were accomplished， illustrating that the presented finite el-ement modeling technique is promising and shall be a future trend in disaster prevention and mitigation of geotechnical engineering.

Key words:3D geological modeling; finite element modeling; virtual borehole; Python; IDW; Kriging