Thermodynamic constitutive theory and analysis of consolidation compression and creep of saturated soils

The thermodynamic soil model (TSM) is a new unified theoretical model for the analysis of geotechnical engineering problems. It is based on the non-equilibrium thermodynamic theory of granular solids. The granular entropy and the elastic relaxation are introduced for describing the energy dissipation mechanism on particle level, which allows the model to simulate the various physical properties of the soils, including the overall deformation and the energy dissipation. Based on the TSM, the influence of strain rates, stress/strain paths and non-monotonic loads on the consolidation and creep behaviors of saturated soils are studied in the paper. The results show that the theoretical model is able to describe the consolidation and creep of saturated soils under complex conditions, and it is of high theoretical reference value for geotechnical engineering field.