Abstract
A temperature rise in soils is usually accompanied by an increase in excess pore fluid pressure due to the differential thermal expansion coefficients of the pore fluid and soil particles. To model the transient behavior of this thermally induced excess pore fluid pressure in geotechnical problems, a coupled thermohydro-mechanical (THM) formulation was employed in this study, which accounts for the nonlinear temperature-dependent behavior of both the soil permeability and the thermal expansion coefficient of the pore fluid. Numerical analyses of validation exercises (for which an analytical solution exists), as well as of existing triaxial and centrifuge heating tests on Kaolin clay, were carried out for this research. The obtained numerical results exhibited good agreement with the analytical solution and experimental measurements respectively, demonstrating good capabilities of the applied numerical facilities and providing insights into the mechanism behind the observed evolution of the thermally induced pore fluid pressure. The numerical results further highlighted the importance of accounting for the temperature-dependent nature of the soil permeability and the thermal expansion coefficient of the pore fluid, commonly ignored in geotechnical numerical analysis.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Acknowledgments
The research presented in this paper was funded by the post-doctoral Fellowship from the Geotechnical Consulting Group (GCG) in the UK.
References
Abed, A. A., and W. T. Sołowski. 2017. “A study on how to couple thermo-hydro-mechanical behaviour of unsaturated soils: Physical equations, numerical implementation and examples.” Comput. Geotech. 92 (Dec): 132–155. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compgeo.2017.07.021.
Abuel-Naga, H. M., D. T. Bergado, and A. Bouazza. 2007a. “Thermally induced volume change and excess pore water pressure of soft Bangkok clay.” Eng. Geol. 89 (1–2): 144–154. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enggeo.2006.10.002.
Abuel-Naga, H. M., D. T. Bergado, A. Bouazza, and G. V. Ramana. 2007b. “Volume change behaviour of saturated clays under drained heating conditions: Experimental results and constitutive modeling.” Can. Geotech. J. 44 (8): 942–956. https://doi.org/10.1139/t07-031.
Agar, J. G., N. R. Morgenstern, and J. D. Scott. 1986. “Thermal expansion and pore pressure generation in oil sands.” Can. Geotech. J. 23 (3): 327–333. https://doi.org/10.1139/t86-046.
Al-Shemmeri, T. 2012. Engineering fluid mechanics. London: Ventus Publishing ApS.
Al-Tabbaa, A., and D. M. Wood. 1987. “Some measurements of the permeability of kaolin.” Géotechnique 37 (4): 499–514. https://doi.org/10.1680/geot.1987.37.4.499.
Baldi, G., T. Hueckel, A. Peano, and R. Pellegrini. 1991. Developments in modelling of thermo-hydro-geomechanical behaviour of Boom clay and clay-based buffer materials. Luxembourg: Commission of the European Communities.
Booker, J. R., and C. Savvidou. 1985. “Consolidation around a point heat source.” Int. J. Numer. Anal. Methods Geomech. 9 (2): 173–184. https://doi.org/10.1002/nag.1610090206.
Britto, A. M., C. Savvidou, M. J. Gunn, and J. R. Booker. 1992. “Finite element analysis of the coupled heat flow and consolidation around hot buried objects.” Soils Found. 32 (1): 13–25. https://doi.org/10.3208/sandf1972.32.13.
Britto, A. M., C. Savvidou, D. V. Maddocks, M. J. Gunn, and J. R. Booker. 1989. “Numerical and centrifuge modelling of coupled heat flow and consolidation around hot cylinders buried in clay.” Géotechnique 39 (1): 13–25. https://doi.org/10.1680/geot.1989.39.1.13.
Campanella, R. G., and J. K. Mitchell. 1968. “Influence of temperature variations on soil behaviour.” ASCE J. Soil Mech. Found. Eng. Div. 94 (3): 709–734.
Çengel, Y. A., and A. J. Ghajar. 2011. Heat and mass transfer: Fundamentals and applications. 4th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Cui, W., D. M. Potts, L. Zdravković, K. A. Gawecka, and D. M. G. Taborda. 2018. “An alternative coupled thermo-hydro-mechanical finite element formulation for fully saturated soils.” Comput. Geotech. 94 (Feb): 22–30. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compgeo.2017.08.011.
Delage, P., N. Sultan, and Y. J. Cui. 2000. “On the thermal consolidation of Boom clay.” Can. Geotech. J. 37 (2): 343–354. https://doi.org/10.1139/t99-105.
Fernandez, R. T. 1972. “Natural convection from cylinders buried in porous media.” Ph.D. thesis, Dept. of Nuclear Engineering, Univ. of California.
François, B., L. Laloui, and C. Laurent. 2009. “Thermo-hydro-mechanical simulation of ATLAS in situ large scale test in Boom Clay.” Comput. Geotech. 36 (4): 626–640. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compgeo.2008.09.004.
Gens, A. 2010. “Soil–environment interactions in geotechnical engineering.” Géotechnique 60 (1): 3–74. https://doi.org/10.1680/geot.9.P.109.
Gens, A., J. Vaunat, B. Garitte, and Y. Wileveau. 2007. “In situ behaviour of a stiff layered clay subject to thermal loading: Observations and interpretation.” Geotechnique 57 (2): 207–228. https://doi.org/10.1680/geot.2007.57.2.207.
Hueckel, T., and R. Pellegrini. 1992. “Effective stress and water pressure in saturated clays during heating–cooling cycles.” Can. Geotech. J. 29 (6): 1095–1102. https://doi.org/10.1139/t92-126.
Kutter, B. L. 1992. Dynamic centrifuge modeling of geotechnical structures. Vol. 1336, 24–30. Washington, DC: Transportation Research Board.
Laloui, L., and B. Francois. 2009. “ACMEG-T: Soil thermoplasticity model.” J. Eng. Mech. 135 (9): 932–944. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)EM.1943-7889.0000011.
Lewis, R. W., C. E. Majorana, and B. A. Schrefler. 1986. “A coupled finite element model for the consolidation of nonisothermal elastoplastic porous media.” Transp. Porous Media 1 (2): 155–178. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00714690.
Lewis, R. W., and B. A. Schrefler. 1998. The finite element method in the static and dynamic deformation and consolidation of porous media. Chichester, UK: Wiley.
Lima, A., E. Romero, A. Gens, J. Muñoz, and X. L. Li. 2010. “Heating pulse tests under constant volume on Boom clay.” J. Rock Mech. Geotech. Eng. 2 (2): 124–128. https://doi.org/10.3724/SP.J.1235.2010.00124.
Maddocks, D. V., and C. Savvidou. 1984 “The effects of heat transfer from a hot penetrator installed in the ocean bed.” In Proc., Symposium on Application of Centrifuge Modelling to Geotechnical Design, edited by Craig, W. H., 336–355. Manchester, UK: Balkema.
Mohajerani, M., P. Delage, J. Sulem, M. Monfared, A. M. Tang, and B. Gatmiri. 2012. “A laboratory investigation of thermally induced pore pressures in the Callovo-Oxfordian claystone.” Int. J. Rock Mech. Min. Sci. 52 (Jun): 112–121. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijrmms.2012.02.012.
Potts, D. M., and L. Zdravković. 1999. Finite element analysis in geotechnical engineering: Theory. London: Thomas Telford.
Potts, D. M., and L. Zdravković. 2001. Finite element analysis in geotechnical engineering: Application. London: Thomas Telford.
Savvidou, C., and A. M. Britto. 1995. “Numerical and experimental investigation of thermally induced effects in saturated clay.” Soils Found. 35 (1): 37–44. https://doi.org/10.3208/sandf1972.35.37.
Seneviratne, H. N., J. P. Carter, and J. R. Booker. 1994. “Analysis of fully coupled thermomechanical behaviour around a rigid cylindrical heat source buried in clay.” Int. J. Numer. Anal. Methods Geomech. 18 (3): 177–203. https://doi.org/10.1002/nag.1610180304.
Thomas, H. R., P. Cleall, Y.-C. Li, C. Harris, and M. Kern-Luetschg. 2009. “Modelling of cryogenic processes in permafrost and seasonally frozen soils.” Géotechnique 59 (3): 173–184. https://doi.org/10.1680/geot.2009.59.3.173.
Thomas, H. R., and Y. He. 1997. “A coupled heat–moisture transfer theory for deformable unsaturated soil and its algorithmic implementation.” Int. J. Numer. Methods Eng. 40 (18): 3421–3441. https://doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1097-0207(19970930)40:18%3C3421::AID-NME220%3E3.0.CO;2-C.
Vaziri, H. H. 1996. “Theory and application of a fully coupled thermo-hydro-mechanical finite element model.” Comput. Struct. 61 (1): 131–146. https://doi.org/10.1016/0045-7949(95)00409-2.
Vaziri, H. H., and P. M. Byrne. 1990. “Numerical analysis of oil sand under nonisothermal conditions.” Can. Geotech. J. 27 (6): 802–812. https://doi.org/10.1139/t90-093.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Copyright
©2020 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Sep 17, 2018
Accepted: Oct 28, 2019
Published online: Feb 7, 2020
Published in print: Apr 1, 2020
Discussion open until: Jul 7, 2020
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.