Material Point Method for Geotechnical Engineering

Dr. James Fern is a researcher at UC Berkeley and is working on the applications of the material point method in engineering practice. He has worked as an industry consultant designing caverns and tunnels for hydroelectric power schemes, and using computational geomechanics. He is currently working on the constitutive modelling for large deformation MPM simulations and its application to the 2014 Oso Landslide.Dr. Alexander Rohe is a senior researcher at Deltares and the chairman of the Anura3D community, and specialises in geotechnical engineering of soft soils and computational geomechanics, and is very active in the development of the material point methods. Prof. Kenichi Soga is Chancellor’s Professor at the University of California, Berkeley and was formerly Professor of Civil Engineering at the University of Cambridge, UK. He is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering and a Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers.Prof. Eduardo Alonso is a professor of civil engineering at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia, Sapain. He has several times received the Telford Medal from the Institution of Civil Engineers, and delivered the 57th Rankine Lecture in 2017 in which the MPM was a relevant part of the presentation. He was the honorary editor of Géotechnique in 2017.

'The authors present some examples of application of the Material Point Method to common geotechnical engineering problems, ranging from landslides and strutted excavations to the simulation of the cone penetration test. There is useful guidance on the basic computational background that underpins this particular numerical method… it is a book that I would want to have as a point of reference for MPM…It forms a reasonable foundation for researchers to expand the method towards the wider geotechnical landscape.'-- Nick O’Riordan, Arup

• Foreword. Acknowledgements. Contributors. List of Common Symbols. Part I: Theory. 1. Computational Geomechanics. 2. Fundamentals of the Material Point Method. 3. Different Formulations and Integration Schemes. 4. Recent Developments to Improve the Numerical Accuracy. 5. Axisymmetric Formulation. 6. Numerical Features used in Simulations. 7. An Introduction to Critical State Soil Mechanics. 8. An Introduction to Constitutive Modelling. Part II: Application. 9. The Granular Column Collapse. 10. Inverse Analysis for Modelling Reduced-Scale Laboratory Slopes. 11. Dyke Embankment Analysis. 12. Landslides in Unsaturated Soil. 13. Preliminary Analysis of a Landslide in the North-West Pacific. 14. Thermal Interaction in Shear Bands: the Vajont Landslide. 15. Excavation-Induced Instabilities. 16. Slope Reliability and Failure Analysis using Random Fields. 17. Jacked Pile Installation in Sand. 18. Cone Penetration Tests. 19. Dynamic Compaction. 20. Installation of Geocontainers. 21. Applications in Hydraulic Engineering. Appendix: Thermal Interaction in Shear Bands. Bibliography. Index.