Mechanical and Civil Engineering Seminar

This talk addresses various forms of physical interaction between the environment and naturally occurring granular materials at varying degrees of water-saturation. Emphasis is given to the interaction between the particles and the pore fluids, especially for cases in which the feedbacks between such constituents originate extreme deformation events, such as rapidly propagating debris flows or pervasive subsidence due to the exploitation of energy resources. An integrated approach to capture the co-evolution of deformation and hydrologic properties is presented for the case of granular materials with evolving grain size distribution, which encompasses the case of near-surface deposits made of weak grains, as well as of deep granular rocks subjected to high confining pressures. The performance of the proposed approach in capturing the available evidences for various types of granular materials is discussed, showing that constitutive theories formulated at particle/pore scale can assist the formulation of large-scale engineering models for assessing the spatial and temporal dynamics of hazardous events.