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U.S. Department of Energy
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Effective stress principle for partially saturated media

Technical Report ·
OSTI ID:59526
In support of the Nevada Nuclear Waste Storage Investigation (NNWSI) Project, we have undertaken a fundamental study of water migration in partially saturated media. One aspect of that study, on which we report here, has been to use the continuum theory of mixtures to extend the classical notion of effective stress to partially saturated media. Our analysis recovers previously proposed phenomenological representations for the effective stress in terms of the capillary pressure. The theory is illustrated by specializing to the case of linear poroelasticity, for which we calculate the deformation due to the fluid pressure in a static capillary fringe. We then examine the transient consolidation associated with liquid flow induced by an applied surface load. Settlement accompanies this flow as the liquid is redistributed by a nonlinear diffusion process. For material properties characteristic of tuff from the Nevada Test Site, these effects are found to be vanishingly small. 14 references, 7 figures, 1 table.
Research Organization:
Sandia National Labs., Albuquerque, NM (United States)
DOE Contract Number:
AC04-76DP00789
OSTI ID:
59526
Report Number(s):
SAND--82-1977; ON: DE84013630
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English