We present two different approaches to describe the hydromechanical behaviour of geomaterials. In the first approach the porous media is studied through an equivalent continuum media where the interaction between the fluide and solid phases caracterize the coupling behaviour at the macroscale.We take into account this approach to model experimental tests performed over a hollow cylinder sample of clay rock (Boom Clay), considered for nuclear waste storage. The experimental results clearly show that the mechanical behaviour of the material is strongly anisotropic. For this reason we chose an elasto-plastic model based on Drucker-Prager criterion where the elastic part is characterized by cross anisotropy.The numerical results of boundary value problem clearly show localised strains around the inner hollow section. In order to regularize the numerical problem we consider a second gradient local continuum media with an enriched kinematic where an internal lenght can be introduced making the results mesh independent. The uniqueness study is carried out showing that changing the temporal discretization of the problem leads to different solutions.In the second approach we study the hydromechanical behaviour of a porous media that it is characterised by the microstructure of the material. The microstructure taken into account is composed by elastic grains, cohesives interfaces and a network of fluid channels. Using a periodic media a numerical homogenization (square finite element method) is considered to compute mass flux, stress and density of the mixture. In this way a pure numerical constitutive law is built from the microstructure of the media. This method has been implemented into a finite element code (Lagamine, Université de Liège) to obtain results at the macroscale. A validation of this implementation is performed for a pure mechanical boundary value problem and for a hydromechanical one.
Objective thermo-hydro-mechanical modelling of the damaged zone around a radioactive waste storage site.