A continuum based approach to modelling tensile cracks in soils

Abstract

Desiccation cracking in clayey soils is the cause of significant damage to structures supported by the soils as it can create fluid path ways leading to internal erosion in earth structures, or trigger slope failures and landslides. This paper presents a continuum computational framework to investigate soil cracking undergoing drying shrinkage. The proposed framework combines an advanced meshfree smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) computational method and a size-dependent constitutive model that allows modelling soil cracking at the particle level. The potential of the proposed approach is demonstrated through two examples of a single cracking problem, and a more complex one that involves complex cracking patterns.