Abstract
The nonlinear behaviour of unsaturated soils is governed by the fully coupled hydro-mechanical phenomenon due to the irrecoverable movement of particles and fluids. It is usually accounted for in constitutive modeling using separate evolution rules for plastic deformation and saturation, linked with two yield conditions for stress and suction. In this paper, a new generic thermodynamics-based approach is developed to provide a more rigorous way to capture these underlying mechanisms. A special form of dissipation potential leading to strong inter-dependence of mechanical and hydraulic internal variables is used for the derivation of a single yield surface. A specific critical state model using a small number of identifiable parameters is derived from the proposed formulation. Its capabilities in predicting the drained and undrained experimental results are investigated to highlight the applicability of our approach.
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Acknowledgements
The authors gratefully acknowledge support from the Australian Research Council via Discovery Projects FT140100408 (Nguyen), DP170103793 (Nguyen & Bui), and DP190102779 (Bui & Nguyen).
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Phan, D.G., Nguyen, G.D., Bui, H.H., Bennett, T. (2021). A Thermodynamics-Based Formulation for Coupled Hydro-Mechanical Behaviour of Unsaturated Soils. In: Barla, M., Di Donna, A., Sterpi, D. (eds) Challenges and Innovations in Geomechanics. IACMAG 2021. Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering, vol 125. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64514-4_53
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