Constitutive modeling for compacted bentonite buffer materials as unsaturated and saturated porous media

Bentonite has remarkable swelling characteristics and low permeability that enhance the stability of the buffer materials in repositories for the geological disposal of radioactive waste. It is necessary to apply reliable numerical simulation techniques to assess the safety and mechanical stability of repositories over a long period of time. Having a constitutive model that can describe the mechanical behavior of bentonite is key to such numerical simulations. This paper proposes an elasto-plastic constitutive model to describe the changes in the mechanical properties of bentonite due to saturation in the progress of a repository becoming submerged under groundwater. In the proposed model, the swelling index is formulated as a function of the degree-of-saturation to express not only the swelling behavior, but also the dependency of the degree-of-saturation on the dilatancy characteristics. The montmorillonite content is used as a material parameter to determine the normal consolidation line. The experimental results of swelling volume and swelling pressure tests in previous literature are shown to have been satisfactorily predicted by the proposed model.