Reactive plasticity for clays during dehydration and rehydration. Part 1: concepts and options

A mixture theory framework is adapted to analyze the effects of changes in clay chemistry during dehydration and rehydration on clay mechanical properties. Macroscopic and microscopic evidence points to a possibility of modeling the mineralogical processes of illitization of smectites and re-smectitization of illite as kinetic reactions in closed systems. A version of thermo-chemo-plasticity for rehydrating illite is presented in which a hidden variable of hardening depends on temperature and the reaction progress variable in addition to plastic strain.