ANISOTROPIC RESPONSE OF UNSATURATED SOILS: A MICROSTRUCTURAL APPROACH

Objective

The expression “unsaturated soil” is used in geotechnical engineering to identify a class of soils whose pores are partially filled with water and partially filled with air. Unsaturated soils occur naturally above the water table as a superficial ground layer, whose thickness depends on the balance of precipitation and evapo-transpiration and, hence, on the prevailing local climatic conditions. Unsaturated soils also occur in manmade structures that are built by compacted earth such as embankments, gravity dams, barriers for underground nuclear waste repositories and flood defences. The engineering properties of unsaturated soils are therefore crucial to many civil engineering applications as well as to geohazards engineering (e.g. slope instabilities and landslides). The response of unsaturated soils to loading and environmental actions is crucially dependent on the mechanical anisotropy of this material. Anisotropy in unsaturated soils may be caused by two concurring factors, i.e. the nature of the soil fabric and the deviatoric component of the inter-granular stress generated by capillary pore water. This project aims at investigating anisotropy in unsaturated soils based on the appreciation of the microscopic interactions between solid grains, pore water and pore air. The research is divided in four main tasks: a) performance of laboratory tests on unsaturated soil samples compacted under different conditions to achieve different degree of initial cross-anisotropy, b) interpretation of test results in terms of theoretical models based on the mechanics of granular materials and continuum mechanics, c) microscopy analysis of soil samples subjected to cycles of wetting and drying and 4) study of boundary value problems where the anisotropy of unsaturated soils is particularly relevant. One of the main project deliverables will be the formulation of a constitutive model capable of representing the anisotropic mechanical behaviour of unsaturated soils.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: https://op.europa.eu/en/web/eu-vocabularies/euroscivoc.

• engineering and technology other engineering and technologies nuclear engineering nuclear waste management
• engineering and technology environmental engineering geological engineering
• engineering and technology civil engineering
• natural sciences physical sciences condensed matter physics soft matter physics
• natural sciences physical sciences optics microscopy

Programme(s)

Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.

• FP7-PEOPLE - Specific programme "People" implementing the Seventh Framework Programme of the European Community for research, technological development and demonstration activities (2007 to 2013)

Topic(s)

Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.

• PEOPLE-2007-4-2.IIF - Marie Curie Action: "International Incoming Fellowships"

Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

FP7-PEOPLE-2007-4-2-IIF
See other projects for this call

Funding Scheme

Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.

MC-IIFR - International incoming fellowships (Return phase)

Coordinator