Thermal effects in partially saturated soils: a constitutive model

The present paper is centred on the assessment of an elastic–plastic model for partially saturated soils, earlier proposed by the authors, for its predictive capability with respect to temperature changes, on the light of available experimental results. The model is cast within a constitutive framework that uses Bishop’s stress and suction as main variables governing the volumetric response of the material. Some enhancement to the original temperature-independent formulation is proposed. In particular, functions describing the yield surface and the compressibility modulus are modified to account for the shrinking of the elastic domain and for the increase of irreversible volumetric strain with heating. Some examples illustrate the main features of the present proposal. Comparison with some experimental results is also included.