Numerical analysis of geomaterials within theory of porous media

It is widely accepted that the mechanical behavior of saturated geomaterial s is largely governed by the interaction of the solid skeleton with the flu ids present in the pore structure. This interaction is particularly strong in quasi-static and dynamic problems and may lead to the catastrophic loss of strength known as liquefaction, which frequently occurs under earthquake loading. In this work, numerical simulations of saturated granular deposit s under transient loads are presented to illustrate the performance of a u- p-U finite-element method formulation and the versatility of the numerical implementation. Closed-form solutions based on both a Blot formulation and modern theories of mixtures are compared with numerical results. In additio n, centrifuge experimental results are correlated with numerical simulation s. A companion paper presents the details of the theoretical formulation an d the numerical implementation within the finite-element method.