This paper presents a novel unified model coupling soil volumetric hardening and water retention. The volumetric hardening law is formulated using the effective stress concept and can be applied to various soil types with unified formulations. This law also considers the influence of stress-induced anisotropy, and provides an enhanced prediction of soil response under elevated stress levels and loading–unloading cycles. Furthermore, this law is coupled with a new Soil Water Retention Curve (SWRC) model by considering the dependency of SWRC on the volume change. The new SWRC model captures the hysteretic nature of the water retention, and offers an improved prediction of the hydraulic path for high suction levels. The SWRC model also allows capturing the experimentally observed reduction in the degree of saturation which may occur during the early compression stage under constant suction. With the coupling of the volumetric hardening law and the SWRC model, the unified model is finally developed. The unified model is validated with reasonable accuracy against a wide range of experimental data reported in the literature on clay, silt and sand.

本文提出了一种新的耦合土壤体积硬化和保水的统一模型。体积硬化定律是使用有效应力概念制定的，可以通过统一的公式应用于各种土壤类型。该定律还考虑了应力引起的各向异性的影响，并在升高的应力水平和加载-卸载循环下提供了对土壤响应的增强预测。此外，通过考虑 SWRC 对体积变化的依赖性，该定律与新的土壤保水曲线 (SWRC) 模型相结合。新的 SWRC 模型捕捉了保水的滞后性质，并提供了对高吸力水平的水力路径的改进预测。SWRC 模型还允许捕获实验观察到的饱和度降低，这可能发生在恒定吸力下的早期压缩阶段。通过体积硬化定律和 SWRC 模型的耦合，最终开发了统一模型。根据文献中报道的有关粘土、粉砂和沙子的各种实验数据，以合理的精度验证了统一模型。