Viscous Behavior and Constitutive Modeling of Peaty Soil in Kunming, China
Publication: International Journal of Geomechanics
Volume 22, Issue 12
Abstract
The Kunming peaty soil exhibits distinct physical and mechanical properties from the inorganic clay due to the special soil-forming process and material composition. To better understand the viscous behavior of peaty soil, a series of laboratory tests, including four types of oedometer tests (one- and multistage loading creep tests, constant rate of strain tests, and constant rate of stress) and constant rate of strain undrained triaxial compression tests, are conducted on the Kunming peaty soil. The experimental results demonstrate that the Kunming peaty soil shows significant secondary compression during oedometer creep tests. Meanwhile, the variations of the measured preconsolidation pressure and undrained shear strength with the strain rate are essentially linear in log-log plot for the examined range of strain rate. Based on the generalized power law overstress viscoplastic theory, it is confirmed that the rate-sensitivity and time-dependency of the Kunming peaty soil can be uniformly described using the sensitivity parameter involved in the theory, regardless of the applied loading conditions. The average value of 0.06 for the sensitivity parameter is generally greater than those for inorganic clay, indicating that the Kunming peaty soil exhibits more significant viscous behavior. Finally, by using the yield surface of the modified Cam–clay model, an overstress elastic-viscoplastic model is established and numerically implemented. The numerical model with a unique sensitivity parameter can well predict the rate-sensitive and time-dependent response of Kunming peaty soil under different loading conditions.
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Acknowledgments
The work presented in this paper was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 41972293, 41972285). The financial supports and the helpful comments of the reviewers are gratefully acknowledged by the authors.
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Published In
International Journal of Geomechanics
Volume 22 • Issue 12 • December 2022
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© 2022 American Society of Civil Engineers.
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Received: Sep 7, 2021
Accepted: Apr 30, 2022
Published online: Sep 23, 2022
Published in print: Dec 1, 2022
Discussion open until: Feb 23, 2023
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