Mechanical damage behaviour of an injected sand by periodic homogenization method

This paper deals with the mechanical behaviour of a sand grouted with a cement-based grout. The injected sand is viewed as a composite material comprising two distinct phases: the initial granular soil and the solidified grout matrix which cements the grains together. As a result, a multiscale modelling approach, the homogenization method of periodic structures, has been employed in order to characterize the macroscopic behaviour of the treated medium. The damage behaviour of the grout material is investigated by relying on experimental tests found in the literature. The numerical resolution of the cellular problem is performed by the finite element method. The computation of the homogenized coefficients and the resulting macroscopic relationship obtained between the equivalent strains and stresses allow to display the strong non-linearity of the mechanical behaviour induced by the heterogeneous microstructure and the grout damage.