Numerical Analysis of Desiccation Crack Formation in Soils

A solid continuum model to reproduce the desiccation crack phenomenon is proposed in this paper. The model describes desiccation and fracture process by weakly coupling the diffusion equation and the equation of force equilibrium. Diffusion induced crack initiation and growth are taken care of by PDS-FEM (Particle Discretization Scheme Finite Element Method). On the simulation, we can observe the polygonal cells formed by the cracks and the cell sizes change depending on the thickness. We compare this simulation result with the result of desiccation test with calcium carbonate slurry and show that the variation of crack patterns observed on simulation is coincide with the experimental result.