The book “Towards a Unified Soil Mechanics Theory (The Use of Effective Stresses in Unsaturated Soils, Third Edition)” develops a unified theory for saturated and unsaturated soils. The main equations used to describe the strength and volumetric behavior of unsaturated soils are the same as those used for saturated materials.
Unsaturated soils, however, show several phenomena that need to be included in their constitutive relationships to properly simulate the behavior of these materials. These phenomena are: the hysteresis of the soil-water retention curve, suction hardening, and hydro-mechanical coupling. Therefore, an adequate hydraulic model and a proper elastoplastic framework need to be developed. Unfortunately, the equation of effective stresses for unsaturated soils is still a theme of debate. This book shows an analytical procedure used to obtain the effective stress equation for unsaturated soils. Using these developments, a unified theory for soils can be built.
Important aspects of this book are the use of an effective stress equation that requires the distribution of water in the pores of the soil as data. In that sense, a porous-solid model is developed and used to simulate the soilwater retention curves of the material. Then, an elastoplastic framework for the volumetric behavior of unsaturated soils is established and this framework is used to simulate the phenomenon of collapse upon wetting and the behavior of expansive soils. Then the mechanical model is coupled to the hydraulic model to form a fully coupled hydro-mechanical model that can be used to simulate undrained tests and the behavior of soils during static compaction.
Key Features:
- Sequentially explains soil modeling techniques for easy understanding
- Demonstrates the use of an effective stress equation based on data from porous-solid models.
- Explains how porous-solid models can simulate the soilwater retention curves of materials.
- Establishes an elastoplastic framework for the volumetric behavior of unsaturated soils that is used to simulate the phenomenon of collapse upon wetting and the behavior of expansive soils.
- Explains the practical application of fully a coupled hydro-mechanical (critical state) soil model includes scientific references for further reading The third edition includes additional information on retention curves in deforming curves, the application of a coupled hydro-mechanical model simulating undrained tests and the behavior of soils during static compaction,
- The use of a porous solid model to develop a fully analytical equation for the relative hydraulic conductivity of soils.
The new chapters also cover the experimental parameters used to derive the models. This edition also updates material from previous editions, and adds new scientific references. Towards A Unified Soil Mechanics Theory paves the way for a universal theory of soil mechanics that has a wide range of applications.
This book contains different aspects of the modeling and experimental behavior of unsaturated soils that can be used by civil engineers, geotechnical engineers, earth scientists and hydrologists interested in soil mechanics at both academic and professional levels.
About the Author:
Eduardo Rojas graduated as Civil Engineer at the National Center of Technical and Industrial Education (CeNETI) in Mexico in 1980. He obtained his Master and PhD degrees in Soil Mechanics at the Institut de Mécanique de Grenoble (IMG), France, in 1982 and 1984, respectively. He was associate researcher at the Institute of Engineering (II) in the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) from 1984 to 1996 and chairman of the Department of Soil Mechanics in the Postgraduate Division of the Faculty of Engineering, UNAM, from 1993 to 1996. He has been a research-professor at the Universidad Autónoma de Querétaro (UAQ) since 1996 where he teaches the courses of Geotechnical Engineering and Foundations at the undergraduate level and Unsaturated Soil Mechanics at postgraduate level. He was chairman of the Physics and Mathematics Research Center of the UAQ from 1998-2004. He has been awarded three times the Alejandrina award in Science and Technology for the years 2002, 2004 and 2018. He is currently a member of the National Research System (SNI). In combination with his academic activity at the university, he works as a consultant engineer and has participated in different engineering projects covering several topics from the underpinning of tilted buildings, stability of slopes during heavy rains, to the design of deep and shallow foundations on different types of soils including expansive, collapsing, dispersive and highly compressive materials. He has published 3 books, 9 chapters of books, 45 papers in international journals, and 102 papers in national and international congresses.
Keywords:
Unsaturated soils, Yield surface, Elastoplasticity, Hydro-mechanical coupling, Effective stresses, Collapsing soils, Soil-water retention curve, Tensional stress, Porous model, Expansive soils, Pore size distribution, Compacted soils, Grain size distribution, Collapse upon loading, Wetting-drying cycles, Permeability, Volumetric strains, Probabilistic porous model, Deviatoric strains, Undrained tests
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