International audienceThis paper presents a numerical study on the desiccation cracking process of clayey soil. The initiation and propagation of cracks were investigated using finite element code, including the damage-elastic cohesive fracture law to describe the behaviour of cracks. The coupling between the hydraulic behaviour (moisture transfer in the soil matrix and in the cracks) and the mechanical behaviour (volume change of the soil matrix and development of cracks) were also considered. The results of a laboratory experiment performed on clay soil, taken from a literature review, were used to evaluate the numerical modelling. The results show that the code can reproduce the main trends observed in the experiment (e.g., shrinkage related to drying, crack development). In addition, the numerical simulation enables the identification of other phenomena, such as the evolution of suction and stress related to drying and the development of a single crack. These phenomena are difficult to observe experimentally

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Summary An energy approach is proposed as a complement to the stress approach commonly considered for investigating soil desiccation cracking. The elastic strain energies before and after crack initiation are estimated by both numerical and analytical solutions. The energy released by cracking is then compared with the fracture energy to discuss crack initiation conditions. This leads to combined energy and stress conditions for crack initiation following Leguillon's theory. An approximate analytical solution is derived from a variational formulation of the porous elastic body equations. A cohesive zone model and finite element code are used to simulate crack propagation in an unsaturated porous body. This analysis shows that the energy criterion is reached before the stress criterion, and this can explain unstable crack propagation at the beginning. The approximate analytical solution allows predicting correctly the crack depth and opening in its initiation stage.