Instability of Unsaturated Soil During the Water Infiltration

It is known that the unstable behavior of unsaturated soil includes collape behavior which is due to the decrease of suction as well as the shear failure. In addition, we often meet the numerical instability for the simulation of unsaturated soil during the wetting process. In the present study, we have performed a onedimensional linear instability analysis for the air-water-soil coupled three-phase viscoplastic material. From the instability analysis of the viscoplastic unsaturated soil subjected to the water infiltration, we have found that the specific moisture capacity, the matric suction and the hardening parameter affect the instability. Then, we have performed numerical simulations of the behavior of unsaturated soil during the water infiltration using a multi-phase coupled elasto-viscoplastic finite element analysis method. The conditions under which the numerical instability occurs during the simulation agree well with the results by linear instability analysis.