A thermo-mechanical constitutive model for saturated clays

Abstract

A thermal extension of modified Cam-clay model is developed in this research. Presented model is able to simulate the mechanical behavior of saturated clays for triaxial condition in a fixed temperature higher than ambient one and up to 100°C. The model deals specifically with deviatoric loading after increase in temperature of soil and thus, isothermal loadings are not considered in present formulation. According to previous studies, increase in temperature causes a reduction in void ratio. However some experimental data confirm the assumption that this reduction is dependent on stress level of soil element. A generalized approach for considering the effect of stress level on magnitude of clays thermal dependency in compression plane is proposed in this paper. The comparison between model simulated results and some previous experimental data available in literature shows satisfactory performance of the model for predicting thermo-mechanical behavior of clayey soils.