Effects of transport of pore water and material heterogeneity on strain localization of fluid‐saturated gradient‐dependent viscoplastic geomaterial

The purpose of the present paper is to clarify the effects of permeability and initial heterogeneity on the strain localization of fluid‐saturated cohesive soil modelled by a strain gradient‐dependent poro‐viscoplastic constitutive model. The effects of permeability and gradient parameters on the growth rate of the fluctuation were obtained by a linear instability analysis. Deformation behaviour of clay specimens modelled as a viscoplastic model with a second order strain gradient during shear was numerically analysed by a soil–water coupled FEM under both globally undrained and partially drained conditions. It was found that the deformation pattern and the stress–strain curve greatly depend on the permeability, the drainage conditions and the initial non‐homogeneous properties. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.