A CONSTITUTIVE MODEL FOR PARTIALLY SATURATED SOILS

Presents a constitutive model for describing the stress-strain behaviour of partially saturated soils. The model is formulated within the framework of hardening plasticity using two independent sets of stress variables: the excess of total stress over air pressure and the suction. The model is able to represent, in a consistent and unified manner, many of the fundamental features of the behaviour of partially saturated soils which had been treated separately by previously proposed models. On reaching saturation, the model becomes a conventional critical state model. -from Authors