Mechanical behaviour of densely compacted expansive soils during wetting and drying cycles: an analytical model based on shakedown concept

Abstract

To improve the modelling of mechanical behaviour on densely compacted expansive soils during wetting and drying cycles, this article presents a straightforward one-dimensional model to simulate the deformation change of densely compacted expansive soils with suction cycles. The proposed method based on shakedown concept is first extended by the combined hardening plasticity, including the isotropic and kinematic hardening. To validate this model, two controlled suction oedometer tests in different laboratories are used to calibrate elasticity and plasticity parameters. Comparison of model estimations with the experimental results demonstrates that the proposed model is capable of predicting the mechanical behaviour of densely compacted expansive soils subjected to wetting and drying cycles.

Keywords:

• Unsaturated soils
• densely compacted expansive soils
• wetting and drying cycles
• constitutive modelling
• analytical model
• shakedown concept

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work is financially supported by the project of National Natural Science Foundation of China [Grant Number: 51808306].