An absorbing boundary condition for wave propagation in saturated poroelastic media — Part II: Finite element formulation

In a finite element formulation for dynamic soil-structure interaction, an absorbing boundary condition is needed to model wave propagation towards infinity. When the soil is saturated, its dynamic behaviour can be modelled by means of Biot's poroelastic theory. In Part I (Degrande, G. & De Roeck, G., Soil Dynamics & Earthquake Eng., 1993, 12(7), 411-21), a local absorbing boundary condition for wave propagation in saturated poroelastic media has been developed. In the present paper, this boundary condition is implemented in an irreducible finite element formulation for a compressible pore fluid. Spurious reflections for oblique incident waves on the absorbing boundary contribute to the solution errors. Therefore, a spectral element method, based on classical analytical solution techniques, is used to assess the accuracy of the finite element formulation.