Lateral Pressures in a Confined Porous Medium

Abstract

Lateral and effective stresses obtained by an application of the mixture theory in a fluid saturated porous medium of finite width are compared with those of Boussinesq and Biot theories respectively. The porous medium is assumed to be a binary mixture of water and solid particles. The effects of momentum supply on effective intergranular stresses are illustrated. It is shown that mixture theory predicts higher effective stresses than Biot's theory under the loading and lower stresses at regions close to retaining structures.