Instruct: Identify the main and secondary category of Arxiv papers based on the titles and abstracts
Query: A hybrid discrete-continuum approach to model hydro-mechanical behaviour
  of soil during desiccation   Desiccation cracking in clayey soils occurs when they lose moisture, leading
to an increase in their compressibility and hydraulic conductivity and hence
significant reduction of soil strength. The prediction of desiccation cracking
in soils is challenging due to the lack of insights into the complex coupled
hydro-mechanical process at the grain scale. In this paper, a new hybrid
discrete-continuum numerical framework, capable of capturing hydro-mechanical
behaviour of soil at both grain and macro scales, is proposed for predicting
desiccation cracking in clayey soil. In this framework, a soil layer is
represented by an assembly of DEM particles, each occupies an equivalent
continuum space and carries physical properties governing unsaturated flow.
These particles move freely in the computational space following the discrete
element method (DEM), while their contact network and the continuum mixture
theory are used to model the unsaturated flow. The dependence of
particle-to-particle contact behaviour on water content is represented by a
cohesive-frictional contact model, whose material properties are governed by
the water content. In parallel with the theoretical development is a series of
experiments on 3D soil desiccation cracking to determine essential properties
and provide data for the validation of mechanical and physical behaviour. Very
good agreement in both physical behaviour (e.g. evolution of water content) and
mechanical behaviour (e.g. occurrence and development of cracks, and
distribution of compressive and tensile strains) demonstrates that the proposed
framework is capable of capturing the hydro-mechanical behaviour of soil during
desiccation. The capability of the proposed framework facilitates numerical
experiments for insights into the hydro-mechanical behaviour of unsaturated
soils that have not been possible before.

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The categories of this paper are: dg-ga
36
The categories of this paper are: cmp-lg
29
The categories of this paper are: funct-an
10
The categories of this paper are: q-bio
37
The categories of this paper are: supr-con
22
The categories of this paper are: chao-dyn
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The categories of this paper are: math-ph
33
The categories of this paper are: plasm-ph
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The categories of this paper are: comp-gas
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The categories of this paper are: acc-phys
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The categories of this paper are: nucl-ex
5
The categories of this paper are: gr-qc
34
The categories of this paper are: chem-ph
31
The categories of this paper are: ao-sci
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The categories of this paper are: econ
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The categories of this paper are: adap-org