A dynamic ALE formulation for structures under moving loads

This work describes the implementation of a novel dynamic Arbitrary LagrangianEulerian (ALE) formulation for the simulation of pavement structures loaded by rolling tires in a finite element framework. The proposed formulation enables the simulation of dynamic effects like acceleration, deceleration and variation of the wheel load on the pavement. The ALE scheme is described for a hyperelastic St. Venant-Kirchhoff material capable of finite deformations. With the adoption of this dynamic ALE formulation, a significant improvement in terms of speed and efficiency of the simulation is achieved in comparison to a classical transient Lagrangian formulation. This is primarily because only the relevant portion of the mesh around the applied load needs to be discretized and simulated. Another benefit is that a cumbersome moving load formulation does not need to be implemented. The results show satisfactory agreement with a conventional Lagrangian simulation with a moving load.