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Cracks are one of the major characteristics of soil structure failure. Successfully performed numerical simulation of the soil crack evolution process is conducive to the prediction of potential dangers. In recent years, crack evolution simulation has been greatly facilitated in the field of fracture mechanics by the development of the extended finite-element method (XFEM). However, it is rarely used to simulate crack evolution in earth structures, because in most cases soil cannot be regarded as a quasi-brittle material. Based on the characteristics of stress concentration and redistribution at the tip of a soil crack revealed by numerical tests, this paper proposes a discriminating method for crack propagation that can reflect the influence of the stress field at the soil crack tip on the crack propagation direction, which is then coded to an XFEM program. Compared with existing methods, this new method is found to be more accurate and effective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cracks are the visual manifestation of soil failure. Exploring the propagation process of soil cracks is of great significance to the safety of geotechnical engineering. However, this part of the work is limited by the simulation technology and complex properties of soils. Whether indoor or numerical experiments are in the exploratory stage, the existing results often rely on a specific engineering background. As a result, there is no universal cognitive conclusion. In this paper, the evolution process of cracks in soil was simulated under the condition of loading and unloading and different stress paths with specially developed experiment equipment, and the objective phenomena in the process of crack propagation are systematically summarized. Then, based on the Mohr–Coulomb theory, the stress distribution near the tip of the soil cracks was simulated and analyzed by the extended finite-element method. On the one hand, the reasonableness of laboratory experiments is verified. However, the propagation mechanism of soil cracks is revealed. The whole work has a positive guiding significance for the research and prediction of the crack evolution process in soil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]