Section 2.

Dry vs Saturated Soils

(General Modeling Considerations)

2.1-1 1.1-1
 Dry, Saturated and Partially Saturated Soils

• Soil is a 3-phase material in the broadest sense,

comprising (i) the solid soil grains or particles, (ii) water,
and (iii) air.

• If only the solid soil grains and air are present, then it is
a dry soil. Even though dry soil has 2 phases, the
presence of air does not affect its engineering behavior
in almost all cases, hence it can be considered as a
single phase medium for analysis.

2.1-2
 Dry, Saturated and Partially Saturated Soils

• If only the solid soil grains and water are present, such
that the water occupies all the void spaces, then it is a
fully saturated soil. Such a soil has 2 phases: the solid
and the fluid phase.

• If the soil is partially saturated, then it contains all three

phases: soil grains, water and air.

2.1-3
 Dry, Saturated and Partially Saturated Soils

• It is very challenging to model the behavior of a partially

saturated soil containing all three phases. Although it
can be done using specially developed ‘partially
saturated’ soil models, such analyses are still not
common in geotechnical analysis for engineering
practice.
• In conventional geotechnical engineering, it is much
more common and feasible to analyze the two limiting
conditions of dry soil and saturated soil.

• Hence, in this module, we will focus only on dry soils

and fully saturated soils.

2.1-4
 Dry, Saturated and Partially Saturated Soils
• The FE analysis of dry soils follows the single-phase
approach that you have learned in CE4257 and revisited
in Section 1 of this module.
Even though dry soils contain void spaces containing air, the whole soil
mass is modeled as an “equivalent continuum” without voids. In this
regard, it can be treated as a single phase medium.

• The FE analyses of fully saturated soils is introduced

and discussed in this section (Section 2).
Fully saturated soils are two-phase media, comprising the soil particles
(solid phase) and the water (fluid phase). In many cases, the effect of the
water cannot be ignored. Hence, the analysis of fully saturated soils is
more complex than that of the single phase idealization considered in
Section 1.
• The analysis of saturated soils using finite element
modeling can be performed in different ways, depending
on which features of the saturated soil we are interested
in capturing.
2.1-5
 Factors affecting the Response of Saturated Soils
• When a fully saturated soil is subjected to an external
loading, its response (in terms of drained, undrained or
partially drained) is influenced by two factors:
➢ Loading Rate
This is usually an external factor, depending on the
nature of the problem or construction process.
➢ Soil Permeability
This varies with the soil type (clay, silt or sand),
and it affects how fast the water can respond and
flow in/out of the soil pore spaces. The higher the
permeability, the faster the water can flow in or out
of the void spaces, and hence the faster the
externally applied load can be transferred to the
soil skeleton, thus modifying its effective stresses.
2.1-6
 Factors affecting the Response of Saturated Soils

• Depending on (i) the loading rate and (ii) the soil

permeability, the soil can exhibit one of the three
responses below at any one point in time:
➢ Undrained Response
➢ Partially Drained Response
➢ Drained Response

▪ Loading Rate High Intermediate Low

▪ Permeability Low Intermediate High

Undrained Partially-Drained Drained

2.1-7
 Factors affecting the Response of Saturated Soils
• Note that whether the soil exhibits undrained, partially
drained or drained response depends on the combined
‘interaction’ between the loading rate and the
permeability
• For example, we usually think of a sand as a permeable
material, which will exhibit drained response in most
typical engineering problems.
• This is generally true for an excavation or an
embankment construction problem.
• However, for special cases involving rapid loadings,
such as during an earthquake or a blast event, the
loading time involved is so short that the water cannot
flow in or out fast enough to dissipate the excess pore
pressure, and hence the saturated sand response is
essentially undrained.
2.1-8
 Summary
• Hence, when carrying out a geotechnical analysis, you
always have to ask yourself whether the soil is likely to
exhibit undrained, partially drained or drained response. You
do this by considering the nature of the loading and the soil
permeability.
• The drained response can be analyzed using the single
phase approach considered previously in Section 1.

• For the partially drained response, we will look at it in a

separate section later in this module, when we study
consolidation analysis.
• In this section, we will focus on the undrained response
(irrespective of whether it occurs in a saturated clay or
saturated sand) and how it can be modeled in geotechnical
FEM.

2.1-9