Wave Propagation in a Coupled PFC-FLAC3D model

	Verification Resources
Data Files	Project: open “Wave.prj”[1] in PFC3D

Problem Statement

The following example illustrates plane wave propagation through a one-dimensional “bar” using PFC-FLAC3D coupling. The bar is composed of particles bonded together on the left hand side of the system, and of zones on the rigth hand side. The left-hand end is a “quiet boundary” that absorbs any incident waveform. The PFC and FLAC3D regions overlap over a specified length, where they are coupled using the Ball-Zone couplign scheme. An input pulse is also injected at the left-hand boundary.

Numerical Model

The data files “wave_propagation.dat” simulate wave propagation in a bar made up of a coupled PFC-FLAC3D system. The time history of the input pulse is

(1)\[\dot U(t)={A\over2}\bigl(1-\cos(2\pi f t)\bigr)\]

where A is the amplitude of the pulse and f is the frequency. The duration of the pulse is 1/f, and U̇ (the velocity applied to the PFC model) is set to zero after the duration of the pulse. Parameters R, ρ, C, f, and A are set in the initial section of “wave_propagation.dat”.

When the data files are executed with PFC, the time histories reproduced in Figure 2 is generated.

Figure 1: Velocity histories.

Reference

Endnote

[1]

This file may be found in PFC3D under the “verification_problems/wave” folder in the Examples dialog (Help —> Examples on the menu). If this entry does not appear, please copy the application data to a new directory. (Use the menu commands Tools —> Copy App Data …. See the Copy Application Data section for details.)