In the field of soil dynamics and earthquake engineering, the investigators have been primarily interested in the transient phenomena of soil occurred by dynamic loads and, a number of geomechanists have proposed several solution techniques. However some of those do not consider the important aspects that the geological material has non-linear characteristics and is a porous material with voids, generally filled with water which exerts pressures on the solid particles.
In this paper, the numerical solution of soil behaviour was evaluated in which the behaviour of water in the voids could be included by using generalized Biot formulation, and the behaviour of soil was described by adopting the Matsui's non-linear constitutive model. The solution of Biot's governing equations has been performed by finite element solution scheme. The solution technique has been also used by several investigators and, therefore, the main propose of this work is the application of a non-linear constitutive model and the comparison of the results with others.
From the results obtained, the model used in this study well predicts the behaviour of clay material subjected to dynamic loads, but the liquefaction phenomena of sand are not appropriately described. Based on the results and those of other papers, good predictions of soil behaviour should be accompanied by proper constitutive model for the material behaviour, and the behaviour of water in void should also be considered to obtain the reasonable pore pressure response.
