Abstract
In the present paper, a water-soil coupled elasto-plastic finite element analysis method has been proposed for unsaturated river embankment by incorporating unsaturated soil-water characteristics. The simplified three-phase method has been developed based on the multi-phase porous theory by assuming that the compressibility of pore air is very high. It is shown that the proposed soil deformation-seepage flow coupled analysis method is applicable for simulating the behavior of river embankments during seepage flow. The method has been verified by simulating experimental results of seepage flow and one-dimensional flow problem. Then, using the proposed method behaviors of river embankments with different initial saturations and different permeability coefficients during the high river water level have been numerically analyzed. From the numerical work, seepage-deformation characteristics of river embankment, the effects of permeability, and the initial saturation have been clarified.
