6. Conclusion

In this article, we have attempted to give an exhaustive overview of the phenomenological visco-elasto-plastic behavior models used in civil engineering. Today, these models represent the bulk of the behavior laws implemented by companies.

An important generalization of these models has appeared more recently, in connection with the consideration of the mostly unsaturated character of civil engineering materials in situations of practical interest. Section 5 is devoted entirely to this aspect. The corresponding numerical tools will certainly continue to be developed in the coming years. More generally, chemo-thermo-hydro-mechanical couplings (important, for example, in modeling the storage of radioactive waste, in the assisted exploitation of oil and gas reservoirs, in geothermal energy, etc.) will be able to be modeled more realistically than at present....