León González Acosta successfully defended his PhD thesis!

León González Acosta, postdoctoral researcher in the section of Geo-Engineering, successfully defended his PhD thesis entitled “Investigation of MPM inaccuracies, contact simulation and robust implementation for geotechnical problems”, on 6 October 2020.

 

León's thesis is about the improvement of the material point method (MPM) and its use in geotechnical problems, such as landslides and soil-structure interaction problems. MPM is a numerical technique developed in the '90s which has gained recognition due to its capability simulating large deformation problems. However, despite showing impressive results, its accuracy needs to be improved to be implemented in real projects. In the thesis Investigation of MPM inaccuracies, contact simulation and robust implementation for geotechnical problems, several improvements to the MPM are presented, validated and implemented in many geotechnical problems.

Currently, León is working as a postdoc in the SOFTTOP project, developing a finite element algorithm capable to simulate earthquakes in combination with the Hydro-mechanical behaviour of the soil. The goal of this project is to investigate the damages and possible risk of structures in the Groningen area, where several earthquakes have occurred in the last years due to the extraction of natural gas.