This book presents contributions to the 9th International Workshop on Bifurcation and Degradation in Geomaterials held in Porquerolles, France, May 23-26, 2011. This series of conferences, started in the early 1980s, is dedicated to the research on degradation and instability phenomena in geomaterials.

The volume gathers a series of manuscripts by brilliant international scholars reflecting recent trends in theoretical and experimental research in geomechanics. It incorporates contributions on topics like instability analysis, localized and diffuse failure description, multi-scale...

Failure in Geomaterials offers a unified view of material failure as an instability of deformation modes framed within the theory of bifurcation.

Using mathematical rigor, logic, physical reasoning and basic principles of mechanics, the authors develop the fundamentals of failure in geomaterials based on the second-order work criterion. Various forms of rupture modes and material instabilities in granular materials are explored both analytically and numerically with lab experimental observations on sand as a backdrop. The authors provide a clear picture of inelastic...