Mapped infinite elements in soil consolidation

The problems of consolidation often involve unbounded continua. The most common solution is then achieved by limiting the studied area through the introduction, at finite distance, of a boundary on which adequate conditions on the field variables are imposed. In this paper mapped infinite elements are used to model the far-field solution. Spatial discretization is hence performed on the basis of both finite and infinite elements. In two examples, solutions involving finite and infinite elements are compared with known analytical solutions and it is shown that an excellent agreement can be achieved by the use of mapped infinite elements.