Current Trends in Computational Geomechanics and Geotechnical Engineering

Computational geomechanics is the field of computational mechanics where geo-engineering systems are analyzed using the principles of mechanics through numerical methods. In those systems lie porous media with a variety of multi-phase materials such as soils, rock, composites or living tissues. Geomechanics is the branch of mechanics in that response and instability of such porous materials are studied under external loadings such as earthquakes, waves, varying heads of flow during various drainage conditions etc. Among those effects, earthquakes constitute a significant part of the design of geo-engineering systems. Geotechnical considerations are particularly important in identifying the conditions leading to instability of such systems under seismic excitations. Here, seismic soil behaviors are necessary properties to be determined to decide whether there will be permanent damage in foundation soils or indirectly in the upper structures during earthquakes. Therefore, it is of utmost significance that earthquake-induced soil behavior is both measured in laboratory experiments and modeled through theoretical and numerical frameworks. While the former have been conducted since 1960’s, it had to take about two more decades for latter works to emerge. As the geotechnical earthquake engineering is a common field of application of geomechanics, another such field is the geotechnical coastal engineering. Wave-induced seabed response is of major concern here to engineers and researchers particularly around coastal and offshore structures. From a broader perspective, it looks like the field of computational geomechanics has currently shifted to three main topics: i) Recent challenges of numerical analyses in geomechanics and geotechnical engineering, ii) Analysis of large deformation and post failure response in geotechnical engineering, iii) Modeling and minimizing uncertainty for design and monitoring in geotechnical engineering. For the first issue of our newborn Journal: this short paper briefly summarizes some recent examples of problems from the fields of geotechnical earthquake engineering and geotechnical coastal engineering.

Keywords:Coastal geotechnics; Earthquake; Earthquake geotechnics; Geomechanics; Modeling; Numerical methods; Waves