Thermoplastic modeling of undrained failure of saturated clay due to heating

This paper is concerned with modeling of thermomechanical failure of triaxial specimens of saturated clays of low porosity. Thermomechanical failure manifests itself in undrained conditions as a development of advanced irreversible strains due to heating under constant total stress. In experiments on two clays the failure occured at temperatures from 70° to 90°C. The observed failure is associated with a pore water pressure buildup. Models of thermoplastic behavior of skeleton and of thermal volume changes of adsorbed water are employed to interpret and numerically simulate the test results. Using these models, thermomechanical failure was found to occur when the effective stress is brought to the critical state by expansion of pore water and thermoplastic compressive strain in skeleton.