Constitutive modeling of principal stress rotation associated with sand under simple shear loading

An elasto-plastic constitutive model is proposed to account for the effect of principal stress rotation that commonly occurs and significantly influences soil behavior. The model is based on a concept of adding plastic strain increments obtained from two mobilized planes: a plane of maximum shear stress which swings as the principal stress rotates, and a horizontal plane which is spatially fixed. Models based on the plane of maximum shear stress alone are particularly sensitive to horizontal effective stress ratio K-0 (=sigma '(x)/sigma '(y)), whereas the proposed model gives a similar skeleton behavior for soils at the same density and mean effective stress, regardless of the value of K-0, as observed in laboratory tests. The model is firstly calibrated by data from drained and undrained monotonic and cyclic Direct Simple Shear (DSS) tests on K-0-consolidated specimens of Nakdong River sand in loose and dense states. The capability of the proposed model in modeling of the conventional liquefaction effects: initial shear stress condition alpha (=tau '(xy)/sigma '(y)) with K-alpha corrections, and initial confining stress condition sigma '(y) with K-sigma corrections, is also emphasized in this paper.

Automated summary

A proposed elasto-plastic constitutive model takes into account the effect of principal stress rotation and can simulate soil behavior regardless of the value of K-0. After calibration with experimental data, the model is capable of simulating conventional liquefaction effects.