ELASTOPLASTIC MODELLING OF PARTIALLY SATURATED SOILS. NUMERICAL MODELS IN GEOMECHANICS. NUMOG III. PROCEEDINGS OF THE 3RD INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM HELD AT NIAGARA FALLS, CANADA, 8-11 MAY 1989

An elastoplastic constitutive model for the description of the behaviour of partially saturated soils is presented. It is formulated in triaxial stress space and adopts the net mean stress, the deviatoric stress and the suction as basic stress variables. The model is able to reproduce many of the characteristic features of behaviour of unsaturated soils and becomes a standard saturated model when the value of the suction reduces to zero. An example of application to a non-conventional triaxial test is also described.(a) for the covering abstract of this conference see IRRD 824029.