A complete plane strain fictitious stress boundary element method for poroelastic media

A fully coupled generalized plane strain boundary element model for determi ning the distribution of stress and pore pressure around underground openin gs in poroelastic media is developed. It is based on the indirect boundary element method of fictitious stress extended to complete plane strain analy sis. New fundamental solutions for longitudinal forces were derived for the development of the model which uses elements with a constant variation of fictitious forces and sources in both space and time. As an example, the pr oblem of a borehole drilled in an arbitrary direction in a triaxial stress field is considered. The results indicate that the fictitious stress method is an accurate and suitable means for complete plane strain poroelastic an alyses of underground openings. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights r eserved.