Elastoplastic model for unsaturated soil with incorporation of the soil-water characteristic curve

Abstract

An elastoplastic model is proposed in this paper that incorporates the soil-water characteristic curve (SWCC) for obtaining soil parameters of unsaturated soil. The SWCC is shown to govern the rate of change in the soil parameters for the elastoplastic model with respect to matric suction. A series of isotropic consolidation tests under different matric suctions and tests for obtaining SWCC were carried out on statically compacted kaolin specimens. Nanyang Technological University (NTU) mini suction probes were installed along the height of the specimen to measure pore-water pressures during isotropic consolidation and SWCC tests. The results of isotropic consolidation tests demonstrate the strong influence of matric suction on compressibility and stiffness of the soil specimens. The experiments were also simulated using the proposed elastoplastic model and SWCC of the compacted kaolin. The simulated results agree closely with the experimental results. In addition, the proposed elastoplastic model was also verified against published data from the literature.Key words: matric suction, yield surface, soil-water characteristic curve, mini suction probe, elastoplastic model, unsaturated soil.