Drained cavity expansion in sands exhibiting particle crushing

The expansion of cylindrical and spherical cavities in sands is modelled using similarity solutions. The conventional Mohr-Coulomb failure criterion and the state parameter sand behaviour model, which enables hardening-softening, are used in the analysis. The sand state is defined in terms of a new critical state line, designed to account for the three different modes of compressive deformation observed in sands across a wide range of stresses including particle rearrangement, particle crushing and pseudoelastic deformation. Solutions are generated for cavities expanded from zero and finite radii and are compared to those solutions where a conventional critical state line has been used. It is shown that for initial states typical of real quartz sand deposits, pseudoelastic deformation does not occur around an expanding cavity. Particle crushing does occur at these states and causes a reduction in the stress surrounding the cavity. This has major implications when using cavity expansion theory to interpret the cone penetration test and pressuremeter test. Copyright (C) 2002 John Wiley Sons, Ltd.