Contact and perfect consolidations

Mohamed El Tani
Lombardi Eng. Ltd., Minusio-Locarno, Switzerland

ABSTRACT: Hydro-mechanical theories for saturated media are based on contact and perfect consolidation
models. Contact consolidation considers a saturated media one kinematical entity in which water flow by contact
obeying Darcys law for water conduction. Perfect consolidation considers a saturated media a superposition
of a liquid and a solid interacting and having each its own movement. Hydro-mechanical models based on the
contact and perfect consolidations lead to different predictions even in the simplest consideration.

1 INTRODUCTION past decade to prevent disorders at dam sites and to

The contact and perfect consolidation models are two
concepts first used for saturated soils by Terzaghi and
Fillunger. Their definitions are stated in the abstract
and are recalled later on in this paper. They can be used
for a practical classification of the hydro-mechanical
model for saturated media. Detournay et al. (1993)
note that Biot reformulated many times the poro-
elasticity theory. There is a simple explanation to this.
Biot works have different roots, its 1941 publication is
based on the contact model and its 1956 publication is
based on the perfect model.
2 CONTACT MODEL FOR JOINTED ROCK
Contact model assumes that a saturated soil is one
deformable entity in which water flows by contact in
the same manner as heat flows in a deformable solid;
Darcys law plays an equivalent role for water conduc-
tion as does Fouriers law for heat. Terzaghi (1924)
developed for saturated clays the first consolidation
model based on the contact model.
Joints are present in great numbers and varieties
in rock masses. They form an integral part of the
geometrical boundary of a rock mass. For practical
calculation, a statistical handling of their behavior is
operated transferring a large part of the joints from the
boundary set to the rock fabric. For regularly jointed
rock masses, parallel joints are grouped together into
sets labeled by the unit normal of any of the included
joints (Morland, 1974).
A 3D numerical code that uses finite space ele-
ments and finite time differences has been developed
at Lombardi Engineering and is used to simulate the
consolidation of jointed rock masses with large dimen-
sions. The code is actively used and has served in the
simulate dam and bedrock interactions. The governing
equations that are used in the code are an adaptation
of contact model for jointed rock masses (El Tani,
1993). It consists of the equilibrium equation, water
mass balance and Darcys law
law together with adequate material relations for
jointed rock masses (Lombardi, 1992) and various def-
initions that are valid for small strains and porosities.
In [1], [2] and [3] , , g, q, , k, p and w are the
stress tensor, bulk density, gravity field, Darcys veloc-
ity, porosity, hydraulic conductivity tensor, pressure
and water specific density; is the gradient operator
and is the divergence operator.
3 PERFECT MODEL
Perfect model considers a saturated soil a superpo-
sition of a liquid and a solid having each its own
movement; the liquid and the solid are interacting enti-
ties occupying simultaneously the same space. This
description originated from the continuum descrip-
tion of mixtures of ideal or perfect gases. Fillunger
(1936) developed for porous media the first consoli-
dation model based on the perfect consolidation. It is a
1D model that can be easily transposed in 3D. Some of
its equations such as the liquid and solid momentum
balance, the liquid stress tensor and the momentum
exchange are

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in which w , r , , w , (1 )r , vw , vr , w , fect model exposed above is not considered universally
r , k, l and are the liquid real density, solid real
density, porosity, liquid density, solid density, liq-
uid velocity, solid velocity, liquid stress, solid stress,
hydraulic conductivity, unit tensor and momentum
exchange; an over-positioned dot stands for the con-
vective derivative.
4 HYDROSTATIC EQUILIBRIUM
An important feature of any perfect consolidation
model is that it produces a similar equation to Darcys
law in the steady state. Taking [7] and [6] into [4] and
considering constant velocities, a new form of Darcys
law is deduced as
This equation should be compared to Darcys law,
identifying the difference of velocities with Darcys
velocity. From this equation, the hydrostatic equilib-
rium is obtained, by equating the velocities to produce
zero flux, as
The flow generator of the new form for Darcys law
and the hydrostatic equilibrium are porosity and poros-
ity gradient dependent. They are not similar to the
forms obtained with contact consolidation. In fact,
the hydrostatic equilibrium that is produced by contact
consolidation is porosity independent and is obtained
from Darcys law [3] as
The difference between the predicted hydrostatic states
[9] and [10] may be neglected as far as the porosity
relative variation is small. Such a condition may not
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Copyright 2005 Taylor & Francis Group plc, London, UK
always be satisfied. It is not satisfied in jointed hard
rock masses that are characterized by low porosity with
high space relative variation. To illustrate this problem,
Snow (1968) observed that joints rarefy and close with
depth and measured porosity changes much lower than
1% with a relative variation close to 100%.
The hydrostatic prediction [9] of the particular per-
exact. However, it appears every time the perfect model
is considered. To overcome this problem, Biot (1956)
uses a drastic way considering implicitly a uniform
porous media. de Boer (2000) adopt for the con-
stituents modified energy principles with powerless
momentum exchange. An irrefutable proposal to over-
come this problem has not been found and the problem
is still open.
Concluding. Consolidation models can be clas-
sified into generalizations of contact consolidation
and perfect consolidation. Every generalization will
include new and different assumptions and will lead
to a new set of equations. The definition of contact
model is the only thing that will remain in common to
all its possible generalizations. The same is true with
the perfect model.
REFERENCES
Biot, M.A. : 1941, General theory of three-dimensional
consolidation. J.A. Physics, 12 155164.
Biot, M.A. : 1956, Theory of propagation of elastic waves in
a fluid-saturated porous solid. J. Acoustical Soc. Am., 28
168178, 179191.
de Boer R. : 2000 Theory of porous media. Springer.
Detournay, E., Cheng, A. H.-D. : 1993, Fundamentals
of poroelasticity. Comprehensive rock engineering 2:
113171. Pergamon Press.
El Tani, M., 1993 Considrations pour une modlisation
conti-nue des massifs rocheux fissurs et saturs. Internal
Report.
Fillunger, P. : 1936, Ground mechanics? (in German). 47 p.
Selbstverlage des Verfassers, Vienna.
Lombardi, G. : 1992 The F.E.S. rock mass model, Part I, Dam
Engineering III: 4972.
Morland, L.W. : 1974 Elastic response of regularly jointed
media. Geophys. J.R. Adtr. Soc. 8: 435446.
Snow D.T. : 1968, Rock fracture spacings, openings and
porosities. Amer. Soc. Civil Eng.: 94 7391.
Terzaghi, K. : 1924, The theory of hydrodynamic stresses
and its geotechnical applications (in German). Proc. Int.
Cong. Applied Mechanics, Delft: 288294.