Application of Natural Element Method in Solving Seepage Problem

In recent years, with an increase in computer processing powers and the amount of memory available, numerical methods have seen a great improvement. Among variety of methods and algorithms, Finite Element Method (FEM) was the most successful algorithm used for solving diverse set of engineering problems, including boundary problems. Application of this method is limited in problems having large deformations due to the requirement for remeshing of the problem domain. According to this limitation, in recent years new methods which can work without the need for meshing of problem have been emerged. Natural Element Method (NEM) is a meshless method which has recently utilized as a tool for solving partial differential equations. The purpose of this research is to study the application of NEM in solving seepage problems. First, NEM is explained and its application in different 2D seepage problems is demonstrated. Finally, in order to justify the preciseness and convergence of proposed method, several numerical tests were conducted and results were compared with FEM using commercial software called PLAXIS. Results show the robustness of natural elements method in finding precise solutions.