Numerical modeling bearing capacity in wetting unsaturated expansive soils

Abstract To address the load-bearing deterioration of expansive soils uplift pile foundation after moisture absorption, a coupled seepage-soil deformation model for unsaturated expansive soils is implemented into ABAQUS. This modeling work consists primarily of two aspects: (1) The total strain of expansive soils has been decoupled into two parts, i.e., one caused by external loads and calculated by using Mohr-Coulomb plasticity model, and the other induced by wetting swelling and modeled by defining the moisture-swelling relation curve of expansive soils; (2) User-defined field subroutine (USDFLD) is developed by defining suction-dependent soil’s parameters (elastic modulus, cohesion and internal friction angle), and employed to simulate softening behaviors of expansive soils after moisture absorption. he above model is subsequently used to perform 3D finite element modeling and hydraulic-stress coupling analysis on the bearing capacity of pile in expansive soils before and after rainfall. Eventually, the proposed numerical method is validated by simulating a group of full-scale tests.