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Uncoupled dual hardening model for clays considering the effect of overconsolidation and intermediate principal stress

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Abstract

A constitutive model is proposed for clays based on the experimental observations from a series of flexible boundary true triaxial shear tests on cubical specimens of light to heavily overconsolidated kaolin clay. The proposed model adequately captures the combined effect of overconsolidation and intermediate principal stress. Overconsolidated clays often exhibit nonlinear stress–strain response at much lower stress levels than what is predicted by the existing constitutive theories/models. Experimental results for kaolin clay demonstrated sudden failure response before reaching the critical state, which became more prominent for higher relative magnitudes of intermediate principal stress. The observed stress state at failure is governed by the third invariant of stress tensor and the pre-failure yielding of the material by the second invariant of deviatoric stress tensor. The proposed constitutive model considers these issues with a few simplifying assumptions. The assumed yield surface has a droplet shape in q–p′ stress space with hardening based on both plastic volumetric and shear deformations. A dynamic failure criterion is employed in the current formulation that grows in size as a function of consolidation history. Pre-failure yielding is governed by a reference surface, which is different from the failure surface.

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Abbreviations

b :

Intermediate principal stress ratio

C f :

Failure surface parameters

F p , F q :

Total plastic flow equivalent for volumetric strain, shear strain

I 3, I 3f :

Third invariant of stress tensor, at failure

n f :

Hardening parameter

n g :

Plastic potential parameter

H :

Plastic hardening modulus

h q :

Shear hardening factor

OCR:

Overconsolidation ratio

p′:

Mean effective stress

p o′:

Pre-consolidation pressure

q, q f :

Deviatoric stress in invariant form, at failure

Δu, Δu f :

Excess pore-pressure, at failure

v :

Specific volume (1 + void ratio)

x, y :

Cartesian coordinates on octahedral plane

ν :

Poisson’s ratio

κ :

Slope of unloading–reloading line [in v − log (p′) plane]

λ :

Slope of virgin consolidation line [in v − log (p′) plane]

ξ :

Shear stress mapping function

ψ :

Asymptoting factor for failure

ɛ ij :

Strain state

σ ij ′:

Effective stress state

σ 1, σ 2, σ 3 :

Major, intermediate and minor principal stress

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Acknowledgments

Input of Mr. Aashish Sharma and anonymous reviewers is gratefully acknowledged. Professor Penumadu acknowledges partial support from DTRA Grant HDTRA1-12-10045, managed by Dr. Suhithi Peiris.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India

    Amit Prashant

  2. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, USA

    Dayakar Penumadu

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  1. Amit Prashant
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Correspondence to Dayakar Penumadu.

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Prashant, A., Penumadu, D. Uncoupled dual hardening model for clays considering the effect of overconsolidation and intermediate principal stress. Acta Geotech. 10, 607–622 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11440-015-0377-9

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