Constitutive model for cyclic behaviour of cohesionless sands

ABSTRACT

This paper presents a constitutive model for describing the stress-strain response of sands under cyclic loading. The model, formulated using the critical state theory within the bounding surface plasticity framework, is an upgraded version of an existing model developed for monotonic behaviour of cohesionless sands. With modification of the hardening law, plastic volumetric strain increment and unloading plastic modulus, the original model was modified to simulate cyclic loading. The proposed model was validated against triaxial cyclic loading tests for Fuji River sand, Toyoura sand and Nigata sand. Comparison between the measured and predicted results suggests that the proposed modified model can capture the main features of cohesionless sands under drained and undrained cyclic loading.

KEYWORDS:

• Constitutive model
• cyclic loading
• phase transformation
• dilatancy
• bounding surface plasticity
• sand

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The authors would like to acknowledge the research funding for this study provided by NSERC through a Collaborative Research Development program supported by BP Canada.