UNIFIED FINITE ELEMENT MODEL FOR SWELLING AND SHRINKAGE BEHAVIOUR OF EXPANSIVE SOILS

Abstract

The mechanical behaviour of soil is quite complicated and depends on many factors. Expansive soils are those clayey materials which exhibit significant volume changes caused by changes in the subsoil moisture. This has been a subject of research for many years, and the advent of the numerical technique of finite element has given added impetus to these effects. A constitutive law is developed and implemented in a finite element program. The finite element technique is used to compute displacements and stresses developed in structures and soil along time of activity of the swelling. The main objective of this work is to verify the
produced unified model for the swelling and shrinkage behaviour of expansive soil. To see the performance of the soil in dryness process, the computation of the heave and stress is continued after the assumed time of wetting period. The values of the heave of soil reduce after reaching a peak value. The reductions of the values of heave are different from layer to layer depending on the rate of loss of water. The main conclusions driven from the various aspects of this study are consistent with the literature findings.