First Steps towards a "Mesh-Free" 3-D Geomechanical Restoration.

@inproceedings{ForgeGM2010,
 abstract = { Structural restoration consists in unfolding and unfaulting geological layers to put them back into their deposition configuration. The 3-D geomechanical approach considers restoration as a physical problem and is usually solved by a finite element method (FEM). Starting from a conformable mesh and fixing Dirichlet and contact boundary conditions, the strain tensor is computed all over the domain, assuming an elastic behavior using Hooke’s law.
The FEMs show some limitations, mostly related to the mesh: difficulties to generate a conformable mesh when dealing with complex fault networks, numerical diffusion due to mesh distortion in case of large deformation. To avoid these mesh issues, this paper proposes a restoration algorithm based on a mesh-free Galerkin method. Starting from a boundary representation of a 3-D structural model, some control nodes are placed on the model boundaries and inside the whole model. Then, assuming Dirichlet boundary conditions (fixed boundaries), the topmost layer of the model is restored by solving the mechanical equations at the nodes.
The method is implemented in M Freelab, a plugin of the g cad software. Currently, the interpolation gives satisfying results, but the numerical integration still depends on the size of the influence domain calls for further evaluation. },
 author = { Forge, Aurele AND Caumon, Guillaume },
 booktitle = { Proc. 30th Gocad Meeting, Nancy },
 title = { First Steps towards a "Mesh-Free" 3-D Geomechanical Restoration. },
 year = { 2010 }
}