Title: Numerical simulation of unsaturated soil behaviour

Authors: Ayman A. Abed, Pieter A. Vermeer

Addresses: Institute of Geotechnical Engineering, University of Stuttgart, Pfaffenwaldring 35, 70569 Stuttgart, Germany. ' Institute of Geotechnical Engineering, University of Stuttgart, Pfaffenwaldring 35, 70569 Stuttgart, Germany

Abstract: The mechanical behaviour of unsaturated soils is one of the challenging topics in the field of geotechnical engineering. The use of finite element techniques is considered to be a promising method to solve settlement and heave problems, which are associated with unsaturated soil. Nevertheless, the success of the numerical analysis is strongly dependent on the constitutive model being used. The well-known Barcelona Basic Model is considered to be a robust and suitable model for unsaturated soils and has, thus, been implemented into the PLAXIS finite element code (Vermeer and Brinkgreve, 1995). This paper provides the results of numerical analyses of a shallow foundation resting on an unsaturated soil using the implemented model. Special attention is given to the effect of suction variation on soil behaviour.

Keywords: unsaturated soils; constitutive modelling; finite element method; FEM; shallow foundation; mechanical behaviour; geotechnical engineering; shallow foundations; suction variation; soil behaviour.

DOI: 10.1504/IJCAT.2009.022697

International Journal of Computer Applications in Technology, 2009 Vol.34 No.1, pp.2 - 12

Published online: 25 Jan 2009 *

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