Geophysics and Nanosciences: Nano to Micro to Meso to Macro Scale Swelling Soils
Abstract
We use statistical mechanical simulations of nanoporous materials to motivate a choice of independent constitutive variables for a multiscale mixture theory of swelling soils. A video will illustrate the structural behavior of fluids in nanopores when they are adsorbed from a bulk phase vapor to form capillaries on the nanoscale. These simulations suggest that when a swelling soil is very dry, the full strain tensor for the liquid phase should be included in the list of independent variables in any mixture theory. We use this information to develop a three-scale (micro, meso, macro) mixture theory for swelling soils. For a simplified case, we present the underlying multiscale field equations and constitutive theory, solve the resultant well posed system numerically, and present some graphical results for a drying and shrinking body.
- Publication:
-
EGS - AGU - EUG Joint Assembly
- Pub Date:
- April 2003
- Bibcode:
- 2003EAEJA....12785C