Abstract
A new constitutive model for the soil-water retention behaviour of unsaturated soils is proposed, able to reproduce the main drying and wetting paths, the cyclic retention behaviour and its dependence on the specific volume. The most significant aspect is the inclusion of the evolution, with the specific volume, of the degree of saturation when suction tends to zero in wetting paths considering the presence of entrapped air bubbles. The model is used to reproduce with success the drying/wetting cycles of two Pearl clay samples.
Highlights
The ability to reproduce soil-water retention behaviour, usually through the definition of the relationship between the degree of saturation, Sr, and suction, s, is one of the key aspects when modelling the behaviour of unsaturated soils
This relationship is the known soilwater retention curve, which should not be called as characteristic curve because it depends on soil’s void ratio or specific volume
Due to the coupling, established through the void ratio, between the soil-water retention behaviour and the mechanical behaviour of the solid skeleton, in a deformable soil, the aspect of the retention curve is always dependent on the value of the void ratio
Summary
The ability to reproduce soil-water retention behaviour, usually through the definition of the relationship between the degree of saturation, Sr, and suction, s, is one of the key aspects when modelling the behaviour of unsaturated soils This relationship is the known soilwater retention curve, which should not be called as characteristic curve because it depends on soil’s void ratio or specific volume. Romero [5] has shown a translation of the main drying curves in the direction of higher suctions with the decrease of the void ratio, and Tarantino [6] and Vanapalli et al [7] presented experimental results showing a dependency of the retention curves on the initial void ratio. The main objective of this paper is to present a soil-water retention model incorporating the hysteretic behaviour, the dependency on the void ratio and the possibility of having an unsaturated state when suction tends to zero in a wetting stage. The proposed model is restricted to isothermal conditions because more studies are needed to characterise better the evolution of the main wetting and intermediate stages with temperature
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