A Soil Model for the Overconsolidated Region of Clays

Abstract

The paper presents an elastoplastic model developed for the overconsolidated region of clays. In the model, the stiffness of the soil is related to its previous history introducing memory points. The stiffness is thus depending on the size and the direction of the new stress/strain increment compared to previous stress/strain states. The plastic strains are constructed from three components. The first plasticity mode is for pure volumetric behavior, the second one for pure shear behavior, and the third one is a Coulombian plasticity term which includes coupling effects. The performance of the model is discussed in relation to laboratory tests. The model has been found to comprise several essential characteristics of low strain level soil behavior, like stress history and direction dependency of stiffness and strain accumulation in cyclic loading within a relatively simple framework.