Publications

A new simple constitutive model is developed to consider the effect of gas exsolution and expansion on the mechanical behaviour of fine-grained gassy sediments. An analytical expression is derived to relate the preconsolidation pressure to a damage parameter (d) which depends on the degree of water saturation. In the deviatoric plane, the analytical expression of the preconsolidation pressure is coupled to a deviatoric yield surface able to account for the initial and enhanced anisotropy of natural marine sediments. The proposed model involves only one additional parameter (d) with respect to classical constitutive models for saturated soils. The model is validated by simulating the main features behaviour of fine gassy sediments identified in literature.