A constitutive model for unsaturated soil-structure interfaces

In geotechnical engineering structures, there may be a thin layer of soil between soil and structurethrough which, load transferring occurs. This layer is called soil-structure interface and the mechanicalresponse of geostructures depends strongly on the behavior of this layer. If the soil mass is in unsaturatedstate, then the interface is technically called unsaturated interface. In this paper, a constitutive model forunsaturated soil-structure interfaces is introduced. The soil-water characteristic curve and the concept ofmodified effective stress are adopted to create an appropriate hydro-mechanical coupling. The modelpredictive capacity is evaluated by comparing its predictions with the existing experimental data.

Keywords:

Constitutive model , Matrice suction , Critical state , Unsaturated interface