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On the Theoretical and Numerical Modelling of Unsaturated Soil
Author(s) -
Graf Tobias,
Ehlers Wolfgang
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
pamm
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 1617-7061
DOI - 10.1002/pamm.200310411
Subject(s) - compressibility , capillary pressure , mechanics , capillary action , porous medium , boundary value problem , darcy's law , geotechnical engineering , mathematics , thermodynamics , materials science , porosity , geology , physics , mathematical analysis
In this contribution, unsaturated soil is treated within the framework of the Theory of Porous Media (TPM). Therein, unsaturated soil can be described by a triphasic model consisting of a materially incompressible, elasto‐plastic or elasto‐viscoplastic solid skeleton, a viscous, materially incompressible pore‐liquid (water) and a viscous, materially compressible pore‐gas (air). The interaction between the solid skeleton and the pore‐fluids are taken into account by a capillary‐pressure‐saturation relation and a Darcy‐like filter law including relative permeabilities to consider the interaction between the two pore‐fluids. The resulting system of strongly coupled differential‐algebraic equations is solved for a gravity driven initial‐boundary‐value problem by the finite element tool PANDAS.