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METHODS article
Front. Built Environ.
Sec. Earthquake Engineering
Volume 11 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fbuil.2025.1567604
Tied Free-Field boundaries to enhance numerical accuracy of earthquake simulations
Provisionally accepted- 1 Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research, Amsterdam, North Holland, Netherlands
- 2 Delft University of Technology, Delft, Netherlands
- 3 Deltares (Netherlands), Delft, Netherlands
Free-Field (FF) boundaries have previously been developed to replicate the (infinite) far-free-field domain in the simulation of earthquake loading problems. Although they can yield accurate results under certain conditions, it has been observed that significant problems can occur if the behaviour of the material near the boundaries is highly non-linear or incorporates cyclic attributes, or if the boundaries are located close to the domain of interest. To address the inaccuracies caused by the use of traditional FF boundaries, a novel technique is proposed: Tied Free-Fields. This technique combines the principles of both standard earthquake boundary conditions (that is, Tied-Degree (TD) and FF boundaries) to accommodate earthquake loading at the domain boundaries in a direct and economical fashion. The proposed solution has been tested using one and two-dimensional benchmarks and an advanced constitutive model. The results show a significant improvement in accuracy over traditional FF boundaries in the modelling of surface settlements and computed energy released, as well as a significant improvement in computational efficiency over TD boundaries in the modelling of asymmetric problem domains.
Keywords: Earthquakes, Finite element boundary conditions, Free-Fields, Site response analysis, Tied-Degrees
Received: 27 Jan 2025; Accepted: 17 Mar 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Gonzalez Acosta, Van Den Eijnden and Hicks. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Michael Hicks, Delft University of Technology, Delft, Netherlands
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