Cyclic response of granular soils evaluated through a strain hardening model incorporated into the generalized plasticity framework

ABSTRACT

In this study, constitutive behavior of granular soils is modeled through a generalized plasticity-based theoretical framework. The soil hardening is addressed by a novel relationship proposed to calculate plastic strains and their evolution during loading history. The model is effective in predicting the response and incorporating it into a numerical scheme. Focus is given to stress ratios yielding liquefaction in a few stress cycles. The proposed hardening law is based upon a combined deviatoric-volumetric hardening rule updating the stress-strain relationship and plastic strain vector. Numerous undrained monotonic and cyclic triaxial tests are simulated for verification of the constitutive formulation. Results indicate that the developed model for sand-like cohesionless soils proves to match fairly well with the available experimental data. Plastic strains are calculated accurately and accumulated pore pressures are well captured. Triaxial test simulations exhibit a successfully improved way of capturing the essential static and cyclic behavior of granular soils.

KEYWORDS:

• Combined strain hardening
• cyclic mobility
• generalized plasticity
• liquefaction
• plastic strains
• saturated granular soils

Acknowledgments

The author would like to acknowledge the support of the EU for a part of this study through the FP7 Marie-Curie Career Integration Grant with acronym ‘DRISCS’ and project number 333831. Another support has also been provided by the Istanbul Technical University Research Projects Unit with project number 37606. All the support by the EU and the ITU is highly appreciated.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Bilimsel Araştırma Projeleri Birimi, İstanbul Teknik Üniversitesi [37606]; FP7 Ideas: European Research Council [333831].