An extended theory of porous media for expansive soils
An extended theory of porous media for expansive soils
The successful simulation of the behaviour of expansive soils using FEM strongly depends on the acting hydro-mechanical processes and their proper consideration. During swelling processes, part of the pore water is bound to the solid. However, the associated change of volume fractions in the porous medium and its contribution to the overall material behaviour is not accounted for in most numerical frameworks. A numerical framework based on the theory of porous media and a novel constitutive model is proposed. The theory of porous media includes a distinct swelling water phase that does not participate in the flow through the pore space. A bidirectional mass transport enables the transition from free to swelling water during change in water content. The reduction of the effective pore space is considered at the finite element level. By consistent balancing in the governing equations, the swelling induced reduction of hydraulic conductivity is directly accounted for. The performance of the proposed framework is demonstrated by back calculation of laboratory tests on different materials. Its capabilities to simulate complex loading paths in (un)saturated conditions with a single set of parameters are shown
Antonia Nitsch; J. Machacek; T. Wichtmann; Carlos Grandas-Tavera
10th European Conference on Numerical Methods in Geotechnical Engineering (NUMGE2023)
3. Coupled analysis
https://doi.org/10.53243/NUMGE2023-379
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