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Implicit scheme for integrating constitutive model of unsaturated soils with coupling hydraulic and mechanical behavior

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Abstract

A constitutive model of unsaturated soils with coupling capillary hysteresis and skeleton deformation is developed and implemented in a fully coupled transient hydro-mechanical finite-element model (computer code U-DYSAC2). The obtained results are compared with experimental results, showing that the proposed constitutive model can simulate the main mechanical and hydraulic behavior of unsaturated soils in a unified framework. The non-linearity of the soil-water characteristic relation is treated in a similar way of elastoplasticity. Two constitutive relations are integrated by an implicit return-mapping scheme similar to that developed for saturated soils. A consistent tangential modulus is derived to preserve the asymptotic rate of the quadratic convergence of Newton’s iteration. Combined with the integration of the constitutive model, a complete finite-element formulation of coupling hydro-mechanical problems for unsaturated soils is presented. A number of practical problems with different given initial and boundary conditions are analyzed to illustrate the performance and capabilities of the finite-element model.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Geomechanics and Geotechnical Engineering, Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, 430071, P. R. China

    Tian-tian Ma  (马田田), Chang-fu Wei  (韦昌富), Pan Chen  (陈 盼) & Hou-zhen Wei  (魏厚振)

  2. College of Civil and Architectural Engineering, Guilin University of Technology, Guilin, 541004, Guangxi Province, P. R. China

    Chang-fu Wei  (韦昌富)

Authors
  1. Tian-tian Ma  (马田田)
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  2. Chang-fu Wei  (韦昌富)
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  3. Pan Chen  (陈 盼)
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  4. Hou-zhen Wei  (魏厚振)
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Correspondence to Chang-fu Wei  (韦昌富).

Additional information

Project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 11072255) and the Natural Science Foundation of Guangxi Province (No. 2011GXNSFE018004)

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Ma, Tt., Wei, Cf., Chen, P. et al. Implicit scheme for integrating constitutive model of unsaturated soils with coupling hydraulic and mechanical behavior. Appl. Math. Mech.-Engl. Ed. 35, 1129–1154 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10483-014-1859-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10483-014-1859-6

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