This book presents the basic theories of Plastic Mechanics of Geomaterial, including the static and dynamic mechanical properties, nonlinear and classical plastic theory, yield surface theory, hardening model, flow rule and loading–unloading criterion, the calculation theory of principal stress axe rotation, and limit analysis of geomaterial and the latest advances in FEM limit analysis. It also set forth the typical static and dynamic constitutive model of geomaterial in detail. Broadening our understanding of the basic mechanical properties and constitutive model for geomaterial, the book helps readers to establish and select the most appropriate constitutive model according to the specific engineering problems and geomaterial characteristics. This book is a valuable resource for designers and researchers in fields related to geotechnical engineering, and it can also be used as a textbook for graduate courses.

This book provides a sound basis in the challenging area of the mechanics of unsaturated geomaterials. The objective is to supply the reader with an exhaustive overview starting from the basics and covering the most recent theories and applications (i.e. natural disasters, nuclear waste disposal, oil and agriculture productions). The presentation of the fundamental concepts is based on an interdisciplinary approach, in the areas of soil, rock and cement-based material mechanics.

The subject of geomaterial interfaces recognizes the important influences of the interface behaviour on the performance of interfaces involving cementaceous materials such as concrete and steel, ice-structure interfaces, concrete-rock interfaces and interfaces encountered in soil reinforcement. During the past two decades, the subject of geomaterial interfaces has attracted the concerted attention of scientists and engineers both in geomechanics and applied mechanics. These efforts have been largely due to the observation that the conventional idealizations of the behaviour of interfaces between materials by frictionless contact, bonded contact, Coulomb friction or finite friction tend to omit many interesting and important influences of special relevance to geomaterials. The significant manner in which non-linear effects, dilatancy, contact degradation, hardening and softening, etc., can influence the behaviour of the interface is borne out by experimental evidence. As a result, in many instances, the response of the interface can be the governing criterion in the performance of a geomechanics problem.The primary objective of this volume is to provide a documentation of recent advances in the area of geomaterial interfaces. The volume consists of subject groupings which cover ice-structure, soil-structure and steel-concrete interfaces, mechanics of rock and concrete joints and interfaces in discrete systems.

The field of rock mechanics and rock engineering utilizes the basic laws of continuum mechanics and the techniques developed in computational mechanics. This book describes the basic concepts behind these fundamental laws and their utilization in practice irrespective of whether rock/rock mass contains discontinuities. This book consists of nine chapters and six appendices. The first four chapters are concerned with continuum mechanics aspects, which include the basic operations, definition of stress and strain tensors, and derivation of four fundamental conservation laws in the simplest yet precise manner. The next two chapters are the preparation for computational mechanics, which require constitutive laws of geomaterials relevant to each conservation law and the procedures for how to determine required parameters of the constitutive laws. Computational mechanics solves the resulting ordinary and partial differential equations. In Chapter 7, the methods of exact (closed-form) solutions are explained and they are applied to ordinary/partial differential equations with solvable boundary and initial conditions. In Chapter 8, the fundamentals of approximate solution methods are explained for one dimension first and then how to extend them to multi-dimensional problems. The readers are expected to learn and clearly understand how they are derived and applied to various problems in geomechanics. The final chapter involves the applications of the approximate methods to the actual problems in practice for geomechanical engineers, which cover the continuum to discontinuum, including the stress state of the earth as well as the ground motions induced by earthquakes. Six appendices are provided to have a clear understanding of continuum mechanics operations and procedures for how to deal with discontinuities/interfaces often encountered in rock mechanics and rock engineering.

This book contains the scientific contributions to the 11th International Workshop on Bifurcation and Degradation in Geomaterials (IWBDG) held in Limassol-Cyprus, May 21-25, 2017. The IWBDG series have grown in size and scope, since their inception 30 years ago in Germany, covering more and wider areas of geomaterials and geomechanics research including modern trends. The papers cover a wide range of topics including advances in instabilities, localized and diffuse failure, micromechanical, multiscale phenomena, multiphysics modeling and other related topics. This volume gathers a series of manuscript by brilliant international scholars who work on modern recent advances in experimental, theoretical and numerical methods. The theoretical and applied mechanics are linked successfully with engineering applications in traditional and in emerging fields, such as geomechanics for the energy and the environment. The quality of the contributed papers has benefited from the peer review process by expert referees. This book can be used as a useful reference for research students, academics and practicing engineers who are interested in the instability and degradation problems in geomaterials, geomechanics, geotechnical engineering and other related applications.

Plasticity and Geotechnics is the first attempt to summarize and present in a single volume the major achievements in the field of plasticity theory for geotechnical materials and its applications to geotechnical analysis and design. The book emerges from the author’s belief that there is an urgent need for the geotechnical and solid mechanics community to have a unified presentation of plasticity theory and its application to geotechnical engineering.