Compaction process in sedimentary basins: the role of stiffness increase and hardening induced by large plastic strains

Abstract This paper is devoted to the simulation of large strain compaction process in sedimentary basins. Special attention is paid to the effects of large porosity changes on the elastic and plastic mechanical properties of the sediment material. The latter are introduced in the constitutive behaviour in the framework of a micromechanical reasoning. In particular, the proposed approach avoids the problem of negative porosities that are predicted by classical models under high confining pressures. Some closed‐form solutions are presented in the simplified case of one‐dimensional compaction. While the influence of stiffness increase is shown to be negligible as regards the compaction law, it proves to affect significantly the stress and porosity profiles. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.