Micromechanical Basis of Concept of Effective Stress

Abstract

Key developments in the concept of effective stress are surveyed with an emphasis on the ensemble averaging based micromechanical approach reported by Didwania and de Boer in 1999. Various assumptions underlying the effective stress for special cases like rigid/poroelastic solid material saturated by incompressible fluid under homogeneous conditions are elucidated. It is shown that for inhomogeneous saturated porous material the concept of effective stress needs to be generalized by introducing higher gradients of porosity, pore pressure, etc.