Coupled Hydro-Mechanical Elastoplastic Constitutive Model for Unsaturated Sands and Silts. II: Integration, Calibration, and Validation

Abstract

Following the comprehensive model formulation given in Part I, a fully implicit integration procedure for the rate equations using a closest point projection method is presented in this paper. The stress-update algorithm and calibration procedure for all the model parameters are discussed in detail. Two sets of laboratory test results, one from unsaturated Minco silt and another one from Toyoura sand, are used to validate the proposed model. The model is shown to have the ability to capture the coupling effects between hydro- and mechanical behavior and predict the laboratory tests reasonably well.