Revisiting the thermodynamics of hardening plasticity for unsaturated soils

A thermodynamically consistent extension of the constitutive equations of saturated soils to unsaturated conditions is often worked out through the use of a unique ‘effective’ interstitial pressure, accounting equivalently for the pressures of the saturating fluids acting separately on the internal solid walls of the pore network. The natural candidate for this effective interstitial pressure is the space averaged interstitial pressure. In contrast experimental observations have revealed that, at least, a pair of stress state variables was needed for a suitable framework to describe stress–strain–strength behaviour of unsaturated soils. The thermodynamics analysis presented here shows that the most general approach to the behaviour of unsaturated soils actually requires three stress state variables: the suction, which is required to describe the invasion of the soil by the liquid water phase through the retention curve; two effective stresses, which are required to describe the soil deformation at water saturation held constant. However a simple assumption related to the plastic flow rule leads to the final need of only a Bishop-like effective stress to formulate the stress–strain constitutive equation describing the soil deformation, while the retention properties still involve the suction and possibly the deformation. Commonly accepted models for unsaturated soils, that is the Barcelona Basic Model and any approach based on the use of an effective averaged interstitial pressure, appear as special extreme cases of the thermodynamic formulation proposed here.     

考虑孔隙水微观赋存形态的非饱和粉土有效应力方程及其验证

有效应力参数的合理确定是非饱和土有效应力研究的重要内容。然而,现有的有效应力参数未能较好地考虑孔隙水的微观赋存形态对有效应力的影响。为此,分析了孔隙水的微观赋存形态,明确了孔隙水可分为收缩膜、吸附水和毛细水,建立了非饱和粉土的扩展三相孔隙介质模型,即孔隙气、毛细水和广义土骨架。基于该模型,采用分相平衡分析法,推导了非饱...     

一个高饱和度非饱和土的本构模型

高饱和度的非饱和土中由于气体处于封闭状态,其内部气压的变化必将对土体的行为产生影响。首先,对高饱和度非饱和土特性进行探讨和研究,随后,在已有非饱和土模型框架基础上,采用广义有效应力原理,建立一个适用于高饱和度条件下的非饱和土的弹塑性本构模型。模型中引入气相耗散的影响,在硬化方程中考虑封闭气体压力改变的影响。最后,利用已有的试验结果来对模型进行验证,并将模型预测结果与前人模型进行对比,表明模型预测可以很好地预测土体的行为,尤其是在高饱和度条件下其结果比其他模型更加接近实际情况。     

Investigation of the effect of specific interfacial area on strength of unsaturated granular materials by X-ray tomography

This paper studies the effect of interfacial areas (air–water interfaces and solid–water interfaces) on material strength of unsaturated granular materials. High-resolution X-ray computed tomography technique is employed to measure the interfacial areas in wet glass bead samples. The scanned 3D images are trinarized into three phases and meshed into representative volume elements (RVEs). An appropriate RVE size is selected to represent adequate local information. Due to the local heterogeneity of the material, the discretized RVEs of the scanned samples actually cover a very large range of degree of saturation and porosity. The data of RVEs present the relationship between the specific interfacial areas and degree of saturation and gives boundaries where the interfacial area of a whole sample should fall in. In parallel, suction-controlled direct shear tests have been carried out on glass beads and the material strength has been corroborated with two effective stress definitions related to the specific air–water interfacial areas and fraction of wetted solid surface, respectively. The comparisons show that the specific air–water interfacial area reaches the peak at about 25% of saturation and contributes significantly to the material strength (up to 60% of the total capillary strength). The wetted solid surface obtained from X-ray CT is also used to estimate Bishop’s coefficient χ based on the second type of effective stress definition, which shows a good agreement with the measured value. This work emphasizes the importance to include interface terms in effective stress formulations of unsaturated soils. It also suggests that the X-ray CT technique and RVE-based multiscale analysis are very valuable in the studies of multiphase geomaterials.

     

非饱和土的应力状态变量研究

以热力学和连续介质力学的应力理论为基础,从非饱和土的土骨架平衡方程出发,导出了一系列应力状态变量,目前文献中所使用的应力状态变量都在其中。研究发现：非饱和土的应力状态变量有多种组合形式（5组以上）,不是惟一的;大多数应力状态变量与土的孔隙率、饱和度等物性指标孪生相伴;所有应力状态变量都具有应力的量纲,单纯孔隙率或饱和度及其组合都不构成应力状态变量;简化的Bishop有效应力公式和Fredlund倡导的两个应力状态变量都是简化了的应力状态变量,前者忽略了孔隙率的影响,而后者忽略了与孔隙率及饱和度的关联性。在选择应力状态变量时应考虑理论合理、应用方便、逻辑关系正确的原则,还应做一定的验证工作。     

非饱和土广义有效应力原理

综述了非饱和土有效应力的沿革,并就非饱和土有效应力的研究和发展中存在的问题进行了讨论。基于多相孔隙介质理论推导得到的变形功的表达式,提出了非饱和土广义有效应力原理。该原理认为,由非饱和土中的单应力变量的有效应力或双应力变量理论很难唯一地确定非饱和土的变形和强度。广义有效应力原理实质上就是要综合考虑影响非饱和土变形和强度的三种广义应力以及与其对偶的广义变形,给出考虑因素更为全面、理论基础更为坚实的广义有效应力原理。它为非饱和土基本性质的研究和本构方程的建立奠定了坚实而科学的理论基础。     

Work and energy equations and the principle of generalized effective stress for unsaturated soils

The effective stress principle has been efficiently applied to saturated soils in the soil mechanics and geotechnical engineering practice; however, its applicability to unsaturated soils is still under debate. The appropriate selection of stress state variables is essential for the construction of constitutive models for unsaturated soils. Owing to the complexity of unsaturated soils, it is difficult to determine the deformation and strength behaviors of unsaturated soils uniquely with the previous single‐effective‐stress variable theory and two‐effective‐stress‐variable theory in all the situations. In this paper, based on the porous media theory, the specific expression of work is proposed, and the effective stress of unsaturated soils conjugated with the displacement of the soil skeleton is further derived. In the derived work and energy balance equations, the energy dissipation in unsaturated soils is taken into account. According to the derived work and energy balance equations, all of the three generalized stresses and the conjugated strains have effects on the deformation of unsaturated soils. For considering these effects, a principle of generalized effective stress to describe the behaviors of unsaturated soils is proposed. The proposed principle of generalized effective stress may reduce to the previous effective stress theory of single‐stress variable or the two‐stress variables under certain conditions. This principle provides a helpful reference for the development of constitutive models for unsaturated soils. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Simulation of liquefaction of unsaturated soil using critical state soil model

Several researchers have reported that the mean effective stress of unsaturated soils having a relatively high degree of saturation gradually decreases under fully undrained cyclic loading conditions, and such soils can be finally liquefied like saturated soils. This paper describes a series of simulations of fully undrained cyclic loading on unsaturated soils, conducted using an elastoplastic model for unsaturated soils. This model is a critical state soil model formulated using effective stress tensor for unsaturated soils, which incorporates the following concepts: (a) the volumetric movement of the state boundary surface containing the critical state line owing to the variation in the degree of saturation; (b) the soil water characteristic curve considering the effects of specific volume and hydraulic hysteresis; and (c) the subloading surface concept for considering the effect of density. Void air is assumed to be an ideal gas obeying Boyle's law. The proposed model is validated through comparisons with past results. The simulation results show that the proposed model properly describes the fully undrained cyclic behavior of unsaturated soils, such as liquefaction, compression, and an increase in the degree of saturation. Finally, the effects of the degree of saturation, void ratio, and confining pressure on the cyclic strength of unsaturated soils are described by the simulation results. The liquefaction resistance of unsaturated soils increases as the degree of saturation and the void ratio decrease, and as the confining pressure increases. Furthermore, the degree of saturation has a greater effect on the liquefaction resistance than the confining pressure and void ratio. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Modelling water retention and volume change behaviours of unsaturated soils in non-isothermal conditions

This study presents a simple approach to modelling the effect of temperature on the soil–water retention curves (SWRCs) of deformable soils and takes into consideration the following two aspects: (1) the effect of temperature on the liquid–gas interfacial tension and (2) temperature-induced deformation of the soil skeleton. The first aspect, the temperature effect, can be modelled using an equation proposed by Grant and Salehzadeh [18], but the second aspect is generally neglected in the literature. To quantify the thermo-hydro-mechanical (THM) deformation of unsaturated soils (i.e., the second aspect mentioned above), a simple volume change equation, referred to as the non-isothermal SFG volumetric equation, is proposed on the basis of the original SFG framework [37]. A three-dimensional THM yield surface in the space of net mean stress, suction and temperature is presented here. The proposed volume change equation is integrated into the non-isothermal SWRC by means of a simple hydro-mechanical coupling law [38]. The performance of the non-isothermal SFG volumetric equation and the non-isothermal SWRC equation is investigated through several numerical examples. A number of experimental results reported in the literature are employed to confirm the validity of the proposed non-isothermal SFG volume change equation and the non-isothermal SWRC equation.     

不饱和土动弹塑性本构模型研究

以饱和度与有效应力为状态变量,通过引入描述不饱和与饱和土孔隙比差的状态变量,将Zhang等提出的饱和土体应力诱导各向异性动弹塑性本构模型推广到不饱和土体中,使其可描述不饱和土在动力循环荷载作用下的力学特性行为。通过对已有不饱和土体在完全不排水条件下的动三轴试验进行理论模拟,验证了所提出不饱和土本构模型的正确性。最后基于所提出本构模型,讨论了在不排水条件下初始饱和度对不饱和土动力特性研究。结果表明,不饱和土在动力荷载作用下,土体的孔隙比将减少,导致饱和度增加;当初始饱和度较高时,不饱和土会转化为饱和土,从而发生液化现象。该研究成果对研究不饱和土在地震等动力荷载作用下的力学特性行为具有重要意义。     

非饱和土中Rayleigh波的传播特性分析

基于对非饱和多孔介质的研究成果,考虑孔隙中液相和气相的相互影响,研究了非饱和土地基中Rayleigh波的传播特性。通过非饱和土中固相、液相和气相的质量平衡方程、动量平衡方程和非饱和土有效应力原理,建立了问题的弹性波动方程。通过引入势函数及考虑自由透水（透气）的边界条件,经过理论推导给出了非饱和土中Rayleigh波的弥散特征方程。通过数值算例分析了Rayleigh波的波速和衰减系数随饱和度、频率和固有渗透系数等因素的变化规律。结果表明：不同饱和度下波速随频率和固有渗透系数的变化均是先不变,然后小幅下降,再急剧增加,最后趋于一致;衰减系数在不同饱和度下随频率的增大而增大,随固有渗透系数的增大而先增大后减小。     

Modelling the mechanical behaviour of unsaturated soils using a genetic algorithm-based neural network

Modelling the mechanical behaviour of unsaturated soils has been the subject of many research works in the past few decades. A number of constitutive models have been developed to describe the complex behaviour of unsaturated soils. Despite the significant advances in the constitutive theories for unsaturated soils, none of the existing models can completely describe the various aspects of the real behaviour of unsaturated soils. In this paper, a new unified approach is presented, based on the integration of a neural network and a genetic algorithm, for the modelling of unsaturated soils. In the proposed approach, a genetic algorithm was used to optimise the weights of the neural network. A three-layer sequential architecture was chosen for the neural network. The network had eight input neurons, five neurons in the hidden layer and three neurons in the output layer. The eight input neurons represented the initial gravimetric water content, initial dry density, degree of saturation, net mean stress with respect to pore-air pressure, axial strain, deviatoric stress, soil suction and volumetric strain, and the three neurons in the output layer represented the deviatoric stress, suction and volumetric strain at the end of each increment. The network was trained and tested using a database that included results from a comprehensive set of triaxial tests on unsaturated soils from the literature. The predictions of the proposed model were compared with the experimental results. The comparison of the results indicates that the proposed approach was accurate and robust in representing the mechanical behaviour of unsaturated soils.     

Predicting effective stress parameter of unsaturated soils using neural networks

In the effective stress equation for unsaturated soils proposed by Bishop, shear strength in these soils depends on the effective stress parameter, χ, a function of soil suction [1]. To estimate the shear strength of unsaturated soils, one must already know this parameter and its variation with soil suction. Though theories on the shear strength of unsaturated soils are consistent with experimental measurements, estimating the effective stress parameter directly from tedious laboratory tests is impractical. Thus, researchers have performed numerous intensive studies to effectively obtain the unsaturated shear strength using simplified empirical methods.This paper shows an adaptive learning neural network method for predicting this parameter, χ. The proposed network is a multilayer perceptron network with six neurons in the input layer representing the air entry value, the volumetric water content at residual and saturated conditions, the slope of soil water characteristic curve, the net confining stress and suction. The available literature uses a database prepared from triaxial shear test results to train and test the network. The results show the suitability of the proposed approach for estimating the effective stress parameter. Network analysis indicates that the χ-parameter depends strongly on the net mean stress.     

吸力历史对非饱和土力学性质的影响

现在被广泛公认的由Fredlund提出的非饱和土力学的双参数理论,即净应力和吸力为非饱和土的应力状态变量,不能直接考虑吸力历史及其饱和度对非饱和土的应力-应变关系和强度的影响。非饱和土三轴试验结果表明,即使净应力和吸力相同的条件下,经过干-湿循环试样与未经过干-湿循环试样的应力比-应变关系和强度是不相同的。在其他条件相同时,经历过干-湿循环的试样比未经过干-湿循环试样的应力比-应变关系要高、强度大和体变小。经过干-湿循环试样的饱和度低而强度高,主要是由于经过先期较高的吸力,相当于受过较大的前期有效压力,使试样成为超固结土。更多不同吸力历史的对比试验有待于进一步研究,以便为非饱和土的水力-力学特性耦合弹塑性本构模型定量地表示上述非饱和土的性质提供基础性试验数据。     

Interpretation of unsaturated soil behaviour in the stress – Saturation space,I: Volume change and water retention behaviour

Unsaturated soil behaviour, such as volume change, shear strength and yield stress, is usually interpreted and modelled in terms of stress and suction. This approach is consistent with laboratory tests where suction is a controllable variable. However, it also suffers some limitations. This paper (Parts I and II) presents an alternative approach for interpreting unsaturated soil behaviour, which is built in the space of stress versus degree of saturation. In Part I, a new volume change equation is proposed in terms of stress and degree of saturation, to give a better explanation to the non-linear change of soil compressibility under constant suctions. The soil compression index is assumed to be a function of the effective degree of saturation and is interpolated from the known compressibility at the fully saturated state and that at a dry state. An alternative approach to simulate hydraulic hysteresis and hydro-mechanical interaction is then introduced, which enables the calculation of the effective degree of saturation under complex stress and suction paths. The proposed volume change equation and the approach to describe saturation variation, which are two fundamental aspects to establish constitutive laws for unsaturated soils, are validated against a variety of experimental data in literature.     

非饱和膨润土的有效热传导特性模型

膨润土缓冲材料热传导特性的研究,对于高放废物深地质处置系统的安全评价至关重要。基于串、并联原理,通过将土体孔隙划分为与固相基质并联和串联两部分,提出了考虑矿物成分、颗粒亲水性、孔隙率及饱和度等因素的非饱和膨润土有效热传导系数的4种预测形式,建立了基于4种形式线性组合的有效热传导特性预测模型。详细讨论了模型参数的确定方法,并讨论了孔隙率、饱和度和孔隙结构、颗粒亲水性等因素对土体有效热传导特性的影响。基于MX-80膨润土和高庙子膨润土热传导特性试验成果,对模型的预测性能进行了验证。结果表明,由于膨润土颗粒尺寸较小且具有亲水特性,孔隙内的空气与水宜采用并联描述。研究成果对于非饱和膨润土的导热性能以及工程屏障系统的THM耦合数值模拟研究具有一定的参考价值。     

Thermo-elastoplastic constitutive model for unsaturated soils

This study presents a simple approach to modelling the effect of temperature on the deformation and strength of unsaturated/saturated soils by using the average skeleton stress and degree of saturation. The concept of thermo-induced equivalent stress is introduced to consider the influence of temperature on the pre-consolidated stress. A skeleton stress–saturation framework is applied to enable the model to describe the thermo-elastoplastic behaviour of both unsaturated and saturated soils, as the skeleton stress can smoothly shift to Terzaghi’s effective stress if saturation changes from the unsaturated to the saturated condition. The new model only employs seven parameters, of which five parameters are the same as those used in the Cam-Clay model. The other two parameters can be easily determined by oedometer tests and simple thermo-mechanical tests. Numerical simulations of isotropic loading tests and triaxial shear tests under different conditions are conducted to illustrate the performance of the proposed model. By comparing with experimental temperature controlled oedometer tests and triaxial tests, it is confirmed that the proposed model is able to capture the thermo-mechanical behaviour of unsaturated/saturated normally and over-consolidated soils with a set of unified parameters.     

干湿路径影响粉土小应变剪切模量的试验研究

天然土尤其是地表浅层土常处于非饱和状态,其小应变剪切模量是预测地基变形及土工结构物动力反应的一个重要参数。通过对非饱和压实粉土三轴样进行弯曲元试验,研究了吸力和干湿路径对其小应变剪切模量的影响。试验结果表明,非饱和压实粉土样的小应变剪切模量各向异性忽略不计;小应变剪切模量G0(vh)、G0(hh)和G0(hv)均随吸力增大而非线性增大;同一吸力下不同干湿路径上的土样,饱和度不同,其小应变剪切模量随饱和度升高而减小,主要原因是土的平均骨架应力和土中毛细水的作用。根据试验结果对非饱和土小应变剪切模量的半经验公式进行了改进,同时考虑了吸力与饱和度的作用。     

利用溢出量数据确定非饱和土-水力学参数

在Wei & Muraleetharan基于非饱和土两相流交界面上的动态相容条件提出的多孔介质热动力学混合物理论模型基础上,推导出能描述溢出量与时间关系的溢出量演化方程。根据溢出量演化方程,结合一定变化规律的基质吸力序列,建立了给定基质吸力序列作用下利用多步流动试验瞬态溢出量数据确定非饱和土-水力学参数的方法。通过对低液限粉土、低液限黏土的多步流动试验研究发现,利用瞬态溢出量数据的拟合来确定非饱和土-水力学参数的方法而得到的各基质吸力作用下试样饱和度和渗透系数预估值,与联合测试系统测得的各基质吸力作用下试样的饱和度及渗透系数接近。     

On the use of effective stress in three-dimensional hydro-mechanical coupled model

In the last decades, a number of hydro-mechanical elastoplastic constitutive models for unsaturated soils have been proposed. Those models couple the hydraulic and mechanical behaviour of unsaturated soils, and take into account the effects of the degree of saturation on the stress–strain behaviour and the effects of deformation on the soil–water characteristic response with a simple reversible part for the hysteresis. In addition, the influence of the suction on the stress–strain behaviour is considered. However, until now, few models predict the stress–strain and soil–water characteristic responses of unsaturated soils in a fully three-dimensional Finite Element code. This paper presents the predictions of an unsaturated soil model in a Three-dimensional Framework, and develops a study on the effect of partial saturation on the stability of shallow foundation resting on unsaturated silty soil. Qualitative predictions of the constitutive model show that incorporating a special formulation for the effective stress into an elastoplastic coupled hydro-mechanical model opens a full range of possibilities in modelling unsaturated soil behaviour.