SHORT COMMUNICATIONS 1415

FINITE ELEMENT RESIDUAL SCHEMES

FOR UNCONFINED FLOW

CHANDRAKANT S . DESAl
Department of Civil Engineering, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A

SUMMARY
A finite element procedure based on residual potential or flow concept is proposed for free surface flow through
porous media. A preliminary example is solved by using the proposed procedure.

INTRODUCTION
Most previous finite element (FE) procedures for free surface (FS) seepage involve modifications
of the FE mesh with successive iterations; a comprehensive review of these procedures is given
in Reference 1. The mesh is usually defined between given physical boundaries and an assumed
or available location of FS, Figure la. Due to the requirement of modifying the mesh, it becomes
necessary to evaluate element properties for the whole discretized mesh or a portion of it at each
iteration; an iteration can imply a cycle of iteration for steady flow or a time increment for
transient flow, the latter may involve a number of cycles of iterations. Such an evaluation of
element properties can entail significant amount of computational effort.
It can be possible to devise an alternative scheme such that the entire structure, Figure lb,
is divided into an FE mesh that remains invariant with iterations. The FS locations are deter-
mined through a special iterative scheme which is called here residualjhw (or potential) procedure;
it is essentially a relaxation type scheme. Alternatively, a scheme based on equilibrium of flow is
proposed.

FINITE ELEMENT RESIDUAL PROCEDURE

The FE method is well documented in a number of publications2 and will not be detailed herein.
Brief descriptions of the FE procedure with the special residual schemes proposed here are given
below. In these schemes, the entire structure is discretized as shown in Figure lb.
The following steps constitute the FE procedures :
1. Solve by using the FE procedure3 for nodal heads or potentials, {&,}, in the entire mesh,
Figure lb, with known heads on boundaries B , ,B , .
2. Search along each nodal line for the point at which

where 4 = fluid potential and z = elevation head. Such a point can be obtained by interpolation
between two points along the nodal line such that at one point 4 is greater than z, and at the other
4 is less than z. The curve joining such points along all the nodal lines yields approximate location
of free ~ u r f a c e . ~

Received 23 April 197.f

1416 SHORT COMMUNICATIONS

(b)
Figure 1. Discretization for conventional and proposed procedures (a) mesh in partial structure (b) mesh for entire
structure in proposed procedure

3. Correct the approximate surface to satisfy the condition that

where n denotes normal to the FS. Two of the possible schemes for such correction are described
below.

Residualflow (or potential) scheme

Locate the elements through which the approximate free surface passes, Figure lb. From the
completed nodal heads, find velocities at the points of intersection between the two nodal lines
of each element and the approximate free surface; any other representative locations can be
chosen. Evaluate velocities normal to the free surface and find the resultant value of residual or
excess flow across the FS. Convert the flow into excess or residual nodal forcing vector {Qri}
nnn

where {Qri}= residual vector, {N}T = matrix of interpolation functions and {qri} = vector
of residual flow across the approximate free surface, and is given by:
{qri} = {vni}A (3b)
and
{Vni} = -[RI[BI{+i} (34
where [R] = matrix of coefficients of permeability, [B] is transformation matrix, = vector
of computed nodal potentials, {vni} = vector of normal velocities, A = area of flow and i denotes
an iteration.
 SHORT COMMUNICATIONS 1417

Find changes in nodal potentials, {A+ri}, by performing an FE analysis under application

of { Q r i } as
[kl ( A h i } = { Q r i } (4)

where [k] = element property matrix. Find revised values of nodal potentials as

where {+o} denotes potentials from Step 1.

Perform Step 2 and find the corrected FS. Continue the corrections until values of {+i} do
not change appreciably during two successive iterations.
Alternatively, the procedure can be based on equilibrium flow.

Equilibrium ofjlow scheme

The flow out of upstream and downstream faces during an iteration should be equal to the
volume of fluid contained between successive locations of free surface during two iterations,
Figure lb. Hence, the position of the free surface about the approximate free surface in Step 2
that satisfies this criterion can be adopted as corrected free surface. A number of iterations are
required to approximately achieve this stage :4

where Q,,, = flow out of upstream and downstream faced and Qfs = volume of fluid between
successive locations of free surface during two iterations.

EXAMPLE
Figure 2 shows preliminary results obtained by using the foregoing procedure for steady un-
confined flow through an earth bank. Here the dashed curve shows the FE results in comparison

-Closed form solution

--- FE solution
0 Nodes
EL -100 feet

EL 50.0

0 100 200 300 400 500 600

(in feet)

Figure 2. Comparisons between results from proposed procedure and closed form solution

with results from a closed form solution5 shown by solid curve. The two results show satisfactory
agreement. Here values of the coefficients of permeability k, = k, = 1 ft/day were used.
1418 SHORT COMMUNICATIONS

CONCLUSION
A rather new approximate approach based on residual flow and equilibrium of flow concepts
is proposed for free surface flow through porous media. A preliminary example is solved.
Additional investigations will be needed for detailed verification.
The proposed procedure does not require modification of mesh at each iteration (or time level)
and hence can result into significant savings in cost.

REFERENCES
1 . C. S. Desai, ‘Finite element methods for flow in porous media,’ Chap. 8 in Finite Elements in Fluids, Gallagher,
R. H. et al. (eds.), John Wiley and Sons, U.K., 1975.
2. C. S. Desai and J. F. Abel, Introduction to thefinite element method, Van Nostrand Reinhold Co., N.Y. 1972.
3. C. S. Desai, ‘Seepage analysis of earth banks under drawdown,’J. of Soil Mech. & Found. Div., ASCE, 98, No. SM 1 1 ,
NOV.1972,1143-1 162.
4. C. S. Desai and W. C. Sherman, ‘Unconfinedtransient seepage in sloping banks,’/. ofsoil Mech. & Found. Div., ASCE,
97, No. SM2, Feb. 1971, 357-373.
5. K . Terzaghi and R. B. Peck, Soil mechanics in engineeringpructice, John Wiley & Sons, New York, 1955.

TECHNICAL NOTE

A COMMENT ON ANDERHEGGEN’S CONFORMING

TRIANGULAR FINITE ELEMENT PLATE BENDING SOLUTION

H. RU~ICKOVA
Computing Center, Technical University, Brno, Czechoslovakia

The author of this comment has programmed the technique described in Reference 1. The method
leads to the solution of the linear system

where w is the global vector of displacement parameters, h is the global vector of the Lagrangian
multipliers, K is the global stiffness matrix, C is a rectangular matrix determining the continuity
conditions and a point denotes the zero matrix or the zero vector. Anderheggen says that if (1)
is solved by the Gauss elimination method no trouble will arise. However, this assertion does not
hold generally. The analysis of the system (1) has led to the following remarks :
1. The rows of the matrix C are in some cases linearly dependent. This occurs for four rows
belonging to four h parameters inside any trapezoid divided into four triangles by the diagonals.
(The proof is not difficult but rather cumbersome.)
2. The singular system described above can be successfully solved by the Gauss elimination
method only if we number first all the w parameters and then the h parameters. However, the

Received 8 April 1975