Formation mechanism of cracks in saturated sand

The formation mechanism of ＂water film＂ （or crack） in saturated sand is analyzed theoretically and numerically. The theoretical analysis shows that there will be no stable ＂water film＂ in the saturated sand if the strength of the skeleton is zero and no positions are choked. It is shown by numerical simulation that stable water films initiate and grow if the choking state keeps unchanged once the fluid velocities decrease to zero in the liquefied sand column. The developments of ＂water film＂ based on the model presented in this paper are compared with experimental results.