Technical Papers
Mar 26, 2011

Performance of Zero-Level Fill-In Preconditioning Techniques for Iterative Solutions with Geotechnical Applications

Publication: International Journal of Geomechanics
Volume 12, Issue 5

Abstract

Biot's symmetric indefinite linear systems of equations are commonly encountered in finite-element computations of geotechnical problems. The development of efficient solution methods for Biot's linear systems of equations is of practical importance to geotechnical software packages. In conjunction with the Krylov-subspace iterative method symmetric quasi-minimal residual (SQMR), some zero-level fill-in incomplete factorization preconditioning techniques including a symmetric successive overrelaxation (SSOR) type method and several zero-level incomplete LU [ILU(0)] methods are investigated and compared for Biot's symmetric indefinite linear systems of equations. Numerical experiments are carried out based on three practical geotechnical problems. Numerical results indicate that ILU(0) preconditioners are classical and generally efficient when adequately stabilized. However, the tunnel problem provides a counterexample demonstrating that ILU(0) preconditioners cannot be fully stabilized by preliminary scaling, reordering, making use of perturbed matrices, or dynamically selecting pivots. Compared with the investigated ILU(0) preconditioners, the recently proposed modified SSOR preconditioner is less efficient but is robust over the range of problems studied.

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Acknowledgments

The project is sponsored in part by the Scientific Research Foundation for the National Basic Research Program of China (Grant No. 2012CB026104) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant No. 2011JBM070).

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Go to International Journal of Geomechanics
International Journal of Geomechanics
Volume 12Issue 5October 2012
Pages: 596 - 605

History

Received: Oct 20, 2010
Accepted: Mar 24, 2011
Published online: Mar 26, 2011
Published in print: Oct 1, 2012

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Authors

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Associate Professor, Dept. of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering, Beijing Jiaotong Univ., Beijing 100044, China (corresponding author). E-mail: [email protected]
Kok-Kwang Phoon, F.ASCE [email protected]
Professor, Centre for Soft Ground Engineering, Dept. of Civil Engineering, National Univ. of Singapore, Blk E1A, No. 07-03, 1 Engineering Dr. 2, Singapore 117576. E-mail: [email protected]
Kim-Chuan Toh [email protected]
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics, National Univ. of Singapore, Singapore 119076. E-mail: [email protected]

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