Enhanced consolidation in brittle geomaterials susceptible to damage

This paper examines consolidation behaviour of saturated geomaterials with a matrix component which is susceptible to damage. Finite-element-based computational model accounts for the alteration in both the deformability and permeability characteristics of the porous material due to damage evolution. The isotropic damage criteria governing the evolution of elastic stiffness and hydraulic conductivity parameters are characterized by the dependency of the damage variable on the distortional strain invariant. The computational procedure is utilized to evaluate the extent to which the time-dependent axisymmetric indentation behaviour of a rigid circular punch on a poroelastic half-space can be influenced by the damage evolution in the porous skeleton. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.