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ARTICLE

Numerical Modeling of the Influence of Water Suction on the Formation of Strain Localization in Saturated Sand

X. Liu, A. Scarpas¹

1 Section of Structural Mechanics, Faculty of Civil Engineering and Geosciences, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands

Computer Modeling in Engineering & Sciences 2005, 9(1), 57-74. https://doi.org/10.3970/cmes.2005.009.057

Abstract

Numerical investigations of strain localization have been performed on 3D dense fully saturated sand specimens subjected to triaxial loading and simultaneous inflow or outflow conditions. The role of the water suction field on the formation and evolution of strain localization is addressed computationally. It has been shown that, in a porous medium, the fluid (water) phase plays indeed an important role in strain localization. The formation and evolution of strain localization are influenced both by the material behaviour of the solid component and the interaction between components. In this contribution, after a presentation of the incremental formulation of the coupled problem and the discretization in time, a nonlinear constitutive model is presented for the solid component. In the last part of the contribution, results are presented for the influence of water inflow or outflow on the development of strain localization in a laboratory specimen.

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