Centrifuge modelling of unsaturated soils

Abstract

The use of centrifuge modeling where unsaturated soils are involved is more limited than its use in problems involving dry sand or saturated clays. This limitation is certainly due to the well-known experimental complexities related with unsaturated soils that increase in centrifuge modeling; on the other hand, few data is available about the scaling laws for unsaturated soils. In this paper, physical modeling of unsaturated soil problems in centrifuge is evaluated considering some phenomena involved in the behavior of those materials such as water migration, expansion and collapse. An overview of the scaling laws that has to be used is presented, with a selection of geotechnical problems studied on small-scale models in centrifuge.