How to model the contractive behavior of soil in a heating test

In this paper, the thermodynamic behavior of soil was observed in well-known heating tests via a simulation, which included THM-coupled finite element analysis as the boundary value problem (BVP). The primary purpose of the paper was to identify the necessity to model a phenomenon called 'the volumetric contraction of soft clay due to heating' by introducing some extra parameters in the thermo-elastoplastic model in which the THM analyses were conducted. Based on the simulation, it was determined that the heating test is only a BVP, and the phenomenon is simply an average behavior of the BVP, not an inherent property of soil. Based on the universal rule that any material will expand when heated, it is not necessary to introduce an extra parameter into a properly organized thermo-elastoplastic model to describe the phenomenon. The results may provide a useful insight for researchers who are interested in modeling the thermodynamic behavior of soils.