Interpretation of unsaturated soil behaviour in the stress-saturation space. II: Constitutive relationships and validations

Abstract

A new volume change equation has been proposed in the preceding companion paper [37]. In the volume change equation, the soil compression index, which is assumed to be a function of the effective degree of saturation, is interpolated from the known compressibility at the fully saturated state and that at a dry state. A novel approach to simulate saturation variation (both hydraulic hysteresis and hydro-mechanical interaction) was then introduced, which enables the calculation of the effective degree of saturation under complex stress and suction paths. The proposed volume change equation in terms of Bishop’s effective stress and degree of saturation gives a better explanation to the non-linear change of soil compressibility under constant suction.

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