Variational Approach to Damage Induced by Drainage in Partially Saturated Granular Geomaterials

Within the context of immiscible biphasic flow in porous media, when nonwetting fluid invades pore spaces which are a priori saturated with wetting fluid, capillary forces dominate if network is formed by fine-grained soils. Owing to cohesion-less frictional behavior such soils, force–driven fracturing phenomenon has been put forward some researchers. Unlike purely mechanistic tensile mode-I that typically attributed formation desiccation cracks attempts model this alternate capillarity-driven mechanism have not yet realized at continuum scale. However, macro-scale counterpart energy associated various pore-scale menisci well-established as interfacial characterized soil-water retention curve. An investigation possible contribution supplying dissipation related fracture initiation essence work, inspired vast literature on gradient damage modeling.