Abstract
Engineering teams often use finite element numerical simulations for the design, study and analysis of the behavior of large hydraulic structures. For concrete structures, models of increasing complexity must be able to take into account the nonlinear behavior of discontinuities at the various interfaces located in the foundation, in the body of the dam or at the interface between structure and foundation. Besides representing the nonlinear mechanical behavior of these interfaces (rupture, sliding, contact), one should also be able to take into account the hydraulic flow through these openings.In this thesis, we first focus on the topic of interface behavior modeling, which we address through the Cohesive Zone Model (CZM). This model was introduced in various finite element codes (with the joint elements), and it is a relevant approach to describe the physics of cracking and friction problems at the geometrical discontinuities level. Although initially the CZM was introduced to take into account the phenomenon of rupture, we show in this thesis that it can be extended to sliding problems by possibly relying on the elasto-plastic formalism coupled to the damage. In addition, nonlinear hydro-mechanical constitutive relations can be introduced to model the notion of crack opening and the coupling with the laws of fluid flow. At the mechanical level, we work in the Standard Generalized Materials (SGM) framework, which provides a class of models automatically satisfying some thermodynamical principles, while having good mathematical and numerical properties that are useful for robust numerical modeling. We adapt the formalism of volumetric SGM to the interface zones description. In this first part of the thesis, we present our developpements under the hypothesis of SGM adapted to CZM, capable of reproducing the physical phenomena observed experimentally: rupture, friction, adhesion.In practice, nonlinearities of behavior of interface zones are dominated by the presence of contact, which generates significant numerical difficulties for the convergence of finite element computations. The development of efficient numerical methods for the contact problem is thus a key stage for achieving the goal of robust industrial numerical simulators. Recently, the weak enforcement of contact conditions à la Nitsche has been proposed as a mean to reduce numerical complexity. This technique displays several advantages, among which the most important for our work are: 1) it can handle a wide range of conditions (slip with or without friction, no interpenetration, etc.); 2) it lends itself for a rigorous a posteriori error analysis. This scheme based on the weak contact conditions represents in this work the starting point for the a posteriori error estimation via equilibrated stress reconstruction. This analysis is then used to estimate the different error components (e.g., spatial, nonlinear), and to develop an adaptive resolution algorithm, as well as stopping criteria for iterative solvers and the automatic tuning of possible numerical parameters.The main goal of this thesis is thus to make the finite element numerical simulation of structures with geometrical discontinuities robust. We address this question from two angles: on one side, we revisit the existing methods for the crack representation working on the mechanical constitutive relation for joints; on the other, we introduce a new a posteriori method for the contact problem and we propose its adaptation for the generic interface models.