Coupled Hydromechanical Behavior of Compacted Loess during Isotropic Compression
Publication: International Journal of Geomechanics
Volume 23, Issue 10
Abstract
Compacted loess is a special collapsible unsaturated soil and is sensitive to hydraulic conditions. Understanding and modeling the coupled hydromechanical behavior of compacted loess during isotropic compression is essential for establishing a complete constitutive model for unsaturated soils, which is of significance for predicting the deformation of loess fills in engineering. In this research, a series of constant suction isotropic compression tests are conducted to study the behavior of compacted loess. The experimental results show that volume change and soil–water characteristics are mutually affected during compression and that the normal compression curves flatten out and shift downward with the decrease in suction. Based on the experimental observations, the normal compression surface is modified, and the loading–collapse yield curve is deduced for the compacted loess. An equation associated with the void ratio is used to describe the effect of the volume change on the soil–water characteristics. Furthermore, a coupled hydromechanical constitutive model for the compacted loess under isotropic compression conditions is proposed within the framework of the Barcelona basic model. Model predictions of the mechanical and hydraulic behaviors of the compacted loess for constant suction isotropic compression tests and wetting tests at constant net stresses are compared with experimental data to verify the performance and validation of the proposed model. The comparisons indicate that the proposed model can accurately reproduce the coupled hydromechanical behavior of the compacted loess under isotropic compression conditions.
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Data Availability Statement
Some or all data, models, or codes that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request. All data shown in the figures and tables can be provided on request.
This work was supported by the Natural Science Basic Research Program of Shaanxi (Grant No. 2022JM-167), the National Key R&D Program of China (Grant No. 2021YFE0111900), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, CHD (Grant No. 300102262503), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 41902300).
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Published In
International Journal of Geomechanics
Volume 23 • Issue 10 • October 2023
Copyright
© 2023 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Oct 10, 2022
Accepted: Apr 25, 2023
Published online: Jul 24, 2023
Published in print: Oct 1, 2023
Discussion open until: Dec 24, 2023
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