• Coupled systems mechanics
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• v.2 no.4
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• pp.375-387
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• 2013

Soils consist of an assemblage of particles with different sizes and shapes which form a skeleton whose voids are filled with water and air. Hence, soil behaviour must be analyzed by incorporating the effects of the transient flow of the pore-fluid through the voids, and therefore requires a two-phase continuum formulation for saturated porous media. The present paper presents briefly the Biot's basic theory of dynamics of saturated porous media with u-P formulation to determine the responses of pore fluid and soil skeleton during cyclic loading. Kelvin elements are attached to transmitting boundary. The Pastor-Zienkiewicz-Chan model has been used to describe the inelastic behavior of soils under isotropic cyclic loadings. Newmark-Beta method is employed to discretize the time domain. The response of fluid-saturated porous media which are subjected to time dependent loads has been simulated numerically to predict the liquefaction potential of a semi-infinite saturated sandy layer using finite-infinite elements. A settlement of 17.1 cm is observed at top surface. It is also noticed that liquefaction occurs at shallow depth. The mathematical advantage of the coupled finite element analysis is that the excess pore pressure and displacement can be evaluated simultaneously without using any empirical relationship.