Effect of porosity on the properties of strain localization in porous media under undrained conditions

Within the general framework of mixture theory and by introducing the fictitious “fluid phase” as a mixture of a liquid and a gas, the conditions for localization of deformation into a shear band in the incremental response of partially saturated and fully saturated elastic–plastic porous media under undrained conditions are derived. The effect of porosity is included in the derivation. The explicit analytical expressions of the direction of shear band initiation and the corresponding hardening modulus of the porous media for the plane strain case are deduced, and a parametric analysis is made of the influence of the porosity on the properties of strain localization based on Mohr–Coulomb yield criterion. It is found that the dependence of the shear banding properties of partially saturated porous media on the porosity is related to the stress states and Poisson's ratio. However, the properties of the strain localization for the fully saturated porous media are almost independent of Poisson's ratio. Finally, on the basis of Mohr–Coulomb yield criterion, some solutions of the shear banding orientation for water-saturated granular materials are obtained, which are proved to be in good agreement with the experimental results reported by other researchers.