CVEN4202 ADVANCED TOPICS IN GEOTECHNICAL ENGINEERING

ASSIGNMENT 1: MODELLING THE STRESS-STRAIN

BEHAVIOR OF SOILS
Hand your work in to Dr Russell or his assignment collection box on level 5 of the civil
engineering building no later than 5pm Friday 11th September, 2015 (Week 7).
Worth 17.5% of course mark

Part A (5 marks)
The most commonly used model in industry for describing the stress-strain behaviour of soils
is the elastic-perfectly plastic Mohr-Coulomb model. Its main ingredients include:
Elasticity
The usual assumptions are made:

ep =

p
K

and

qe =

q
3G

where constants are adopted for K and G.

Yield surface
In the q ~ p plane the yield surface is a straight line passing through the origin and has a
slope M:
f = q Mp = 0
M is a soil constant that is related to a characteristic friction angle (usually taken as the peak
friction angle) through:
M =

6 sin
3 sin

Plastic potential
The normality condition is abandoned and the plastic potential is defined as:
g = q M p + k = 0
where k is an arbitrary variable to allow the plastic potential function to be defined at the
current stress state. M is another soil constant. It follows that the increments of plastic
strains may be expressed as:

g
g
= M and
qp =
=
p
q
such that the ratio between the strain increments, which represents the direction of the vector
of strain increments, is:

pp =

pp
= M
qp
In fact the constant M is related to the plane strain dilation angle through:
M =

6 sin
3 sin

Dilative soils, such as dense sands, have > 0 such that M > 0 and plastic volumetric
expansion occurs as plastic shear strain increases. Contractive soils, such as loose sands, have
< 0 such that M < 0 and plastic volumetric contraction occurs as plastic shear strain
increases.
Notice that the model parameters M and M do not change as the soil state changes, thus the
model is described as perfectly plastic. Model features are illustrated in Figures 3.22 and
3.24.

For 5 marks derive the following stressstrain relationship for this model and a soil element
at yield:

1
p
3K G
q = K MM + 3G

M

M p

MM q

Part B (20 marks in total)

Given the soil properties = 0.3, = 0.05, M = 1.2, = 0.25 and N = 3.5; generate Cam-clay
simulations of a soil in a conventional triaxial test for the following initial states and drainage
conditions:
1)
2)
3)
4)

p = 200kPa, q = 0kPa, u = 0kPa, specific volume = 1.8, drained conditions; (5 marks)

p = 200kPa, q = 0kPa, u = 0kPa, specific volume = 1.5, drained conditions; (5 marks)
p = 200kPa, q = 0kPa, u = 0kPa, specific volume = 1.5, undrained conditions; (5 marks)
Explain why the elastic parts of the stress-strain curves are non-linear. Also explain why
the effective stress ratio at the end of the simulations approaches a value of M,
irrespective of the drainage condition and whether hardening or softening occurs.
(5 marks)

For a maximum of 8 bonus marks (added to final course mark rather than assignment
mark)
Using the model parameters and critical state line defined in Russell and Khalili (2004),
simulate the stress-strain behavior of a soil in a conventional triaxial test using the bounding
surface plasticity model for the following initial states and drainage conditions:
1) p = 200kPa, q = 0kPa, u = 0kPa, specific volume = 1.75, drained conditions;
2) p = 200kPa, q = 0kPa, u = 0kPa, specific volume = 1.75, undrained conditions;
You may ignore membrane penetration in the simulations.