Numerical Simulation of Seepage Flow through Dam Foundation Using Smooth Particle Hydrodynamics Method (RESEARCH NOTE)

Abstract

In this paper, a mesh-free approach called smooth particle hydrodynamics (SPH) is proposed to analyze the seepage problem in porous media. In this method, computational domain is discredited by some nodes, and there is no need for background mesh; therefore, it is a truly meshless method. The method was applied to analyze seepage flow through a concrete dam foundation. Using the SPH method, the computational boundary being coincident with the physical boundary, was numerically acquired by solving seepage flow govern in equations. The numerical results of the presented method were compared with ones calculated by the Geostudio-SEEPW (finite element based software). The water head values were calculated through the dam foundation, and there was a good agreement between results. Moreover, results showed that the SPH method is efficient and capable of analyzing seepage flow particularly in complex geometry problems.