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Soils are complex materials: they have a particulate structure and fluids can seep through pores, mechanically interacting with the solid skeleton. Moreover, at a microscopic level, the behaviour of the solid skeleton is highly unstable. External loadings are in fact taken by grain chains which are continuously destroyed and rebuilt. Many issues of modeling, even of the physical details of the phenomena, remain open, even obscure; de Gennes listed them not long ago in a critical review. However, despite physical complexities, soil mechanics has developed on the assumption that a soil can be seen as a continuum, or better yet as a medium obtained by the superposition of two and sometimes thre...
In the last decades, new experimental and numerical techniques have taken many advanced features of porous media mechanics down to practical engineering applications. This happened in areas that sometimes were not even suspected to be open to engineering ideas at all. The challenge that often faces engineers in the field of geomechanics, biomechanics, rheology and materials science is the translation of ideas existing in one field to solutions in the other. The purpose of the IUTAM symposium from which this proceedings volume has been compiled was to dive deep into the mechanics of those porous media that involve mechanics and chemistry, mechanics and electromagnetism, mechanics and thermal fluctuations of mechanics and biology. The different sections have purposely not been formed according to field interest, but on the basis of the physics involved.
The work of geotechnical engineers contributes to the creation of safe, economic and pleasant spaces to live, work and relax all over the world. Advances are constantly being made, and the expertise of the profession becomes ever more important with the increased pressure on space and resources. This book presents the proceedings of the 15th Pan-American Conference on Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (XV PCSMGE), held in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in November 2015. This conference, held every four years, is an important opportunity for international experts, researchers, academics, professionals and geo-engineering companies to meet and exchange ideas and research findings in the ar...