Constitutive relation of unsaturated soil by use of the mixture theory (I)—Nonlinear constitutive equations and field equations

The nonlinear constitutive equations and field equations of unsaturated soils were constructed on the basis of mixture theory. The soils were treated as the mixture composed of three constituents. First, from the researches of soil mechanics, some basic assumptions about the unsaturated soil mixture were made, and the entropy inequality of unsaturated soil mixture was derived. Then, with the common method usually used to deal with the constitutive problems in mixture theory, the nonlinear constitutive equations were obtained. Finally, putting the constitutive equations of constituents into the balance equations of momentum, the nonlinear field equations of constituents were set up. The balance equation of energy of unsaturated soil was also given, and thus the complete equations for solving the thermodynamic process of unsaturated soil was formed.