Estudio experimental y análisis numérico de la desecación en suelos arcillosos
This thesis focuses on the experimental and numerical study of the desiccation processes of low-plasticity clayey soils that usually result in shrinkage and often in cracking. A comprehensive state of the art that defines the background, variants, objectives, variables and factors affecting the proc...
| Autor: | |
|---|---|
| Tipo de recurso: | tesis doctoral |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2015 |
| País: | España |
| Institución: | Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) |
| Repositorio: | UPCommons. Portal del coneixement obert de la UPC |
| Idioma: | español |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:upcommons.upc.edu:2117/95696 |
| Acceso en línea: | https://hdl.handle.net/2117/95696 https://dx.doi.org/10.5821/dissertation-2117-95696 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palabra clave: | Elements finits, Mètode dels Mecànica dels sòls Materials de construcció Àrees temàtiques de la UPC::Enginyeria civil |
| Sumario: | This thesis focuses on the experimental and numerical study of the desiccation processes of low-plasticity clayey soils that usually result in shrinkage and often in cracking. A comprehensive state of the art that defines the background, variants, objectives, variables and factors affecting the process is presented. In addition, existing theoretical models and numerical simulations in the literature to address the problem of soil desiccation and cracking are reviewed. The experimental study focuses in the first place on auscultation for detecting cracks within a soil mass, which are not visible, with a novel technique in this field: the Ground Penetrating Radar. This technique has been used because of the three-dimensional auscultation requirement and their operational and economic advantages. An experimental study with thin rectangular soil samples is included, that allow studying the influence of the aspect ratio of the samples and the initial size of the soil particles. As part of this thesis, a test has also performed with a cylindrical sample subjected to a rapid desiccation process using the maximum drying capacity available in an environmental chamber at the laboratory, setting the highest possible temperature. The experimental part of the thesis concludes with a comprehensive test of two phases of desiccation and wetting and one phase of flooding on a cylindrical sample of soil, non-existent until now in the literature. For the theoretical development of the numerical model on which this thesis is based, Unsaturated Soils Mechanics, Classic Strength of Materials and concepts of Linear Elastic Fracture Mechanics (LEFM) are used to establish the necessary framework for formulating various phenomena such as water flow in deformable porous medium and cracking. In the body of the thesis, the mathematical formulation of the model and its implementation in a hydro-mechanical coupled program, based on the Finite Element Method (FEM) and Finite Difference Method (FDM) in a MATLAB environment are presented. The ultimate goal of this code is the numerical simulation of the flow in a deformable porous medium and cracking in soils, for which the node release technique is used. A proposal for using the LEFM for describing some of the phases of cracking is included as well. The code developed in this thesis has been used to perform several numerical analyses. Transversal, radial and diametrical sections of cylindrical and prismatic soil samples subjected to drying processes are simulated. Simulations are made to reproduce numerically theoretical experiments and existing experimental results available in the literature as well as from the tests performed in the context of this thesis. The objective of these simulations is to determine the mechanisms by which the soil shrinks and cracks during desiccation. |
|---|