ATHENA: Analytical & programming efficiency in geoTecHnical ENgineering Applications

This project aims to produce software for novel solutions for a range of complex dynamic Soil-Structure-Interaction (SSI) problems, by developing a step-change in the way software for SSI is implemented. The practicing geotechnical community uses typically commercial software which can be computationally demanding. Depending on the expertise of the users and the level of complexity of the problem, such simulations can fuse uncertainty in the design and cause schedule delays, when the design team tries to troubleshoot heavy simulations. On the other hand, simplistic methods fail to capture dynamic effects which govern the response of complex foundations. Open source advanced models which are translated by research groups into software, have experienced limited integration into engineering practice: mainly due to not well-documented software and a lack of protocol of testing code. Beyond the merit of deriving elegant and insightful semi-closed-form solutions, this proposal targets promoting a critical attitude towards software development and will contribute to the establishment of a culture for code verification in SSI to generate software which can replicate and reproduce results.

Keywords:dynamic Soil-Structure Interaction, Pile foundations, caissons, seismic response of deep foundations, reproducible and replicable results, well documented codes, future-proof software tools, novel insightful analytical models

Disciplines:Soil mechanics, Geotechnical and environmental engineering not elsewhere classified, Software engineering, Other civil and building engineering not elsewhere classified