How to simulate soil as a solid material with PFEM in current Kratos versions?

[junmingzhang124]

Hello everyone,

I am trying to use PFEM in Kratos to simulate solid materials such as soil, and I would like to ask for guidance on the correct workflow in the current Kratos versions.

My goal

My final goal is to simulate soil deformation problems such as landslides or slope instability. At this stage, I want to understand how to model a solid domain (for example, soil) with PFEM in Kratos, before moving to more advanced coupled problems.

My confusion

From some older examples, documents, and discussions, I found references to:

• PfemSolidMechanicsApplication
• old PFEM workflows / old MainKratos scripts
• GiD examples that seem to use legacy structures

However, I also learned that the legacy PFEM solid mechanics application is no longer actively maintained, and I am not sure what the recommended approach is in the current Kratos versions.

So my main question is:

What is the correct and up-to-date way to simulate solid materials (such as soil) with PFEM in current Kratos?

I also encountered difficulties when trying old examples / old scripts, because some modules, solver names, and project structures seem inconsistent with the current version.

What I would like to know

I would really appreciate guidance on the following points:

1. Which application or workflow is currently recommended for PFEM solid simulation?
2. Is there any maintained example for soil / geomaterial / deformable solid with PFEM?

Any guidance, example, or documentation reference would be greatly appreciated. Thank you very much for your help.

[AlejandroCornejo]

Hi,

The current PFEM implementation in the master branch that is being maintained is the PFEMFluidDynamicsApplication @AFranci

To do so, you should compile this application and use a typical soil mechanics constitutive model such as the mu-I for example. As far as I know this should be possible with what is inside this app.

Alejandro

[junmingzhang124]

Hi Alejandro,

Thank you for your advice.

I have already compiled the PFEMFluidDynamicsApplication successfully and started looking into its constitutive modeling options.

My goal is to use PFEM for soil-like materials, and I would like to explore whether more geomechanics-oriented constitutive laws could be introduced, for example Mohr–Coulomb, Drucker–Prager, or Cam-Clay.

Would you recommend extending the constitutive laws directly inside the PFEMFluidDynamicsApplication, or coupling constitutive models from another application in Kratos?

Best regards,
Junming