A Comparison of Four Elastic Visco-Plastic Models for Soft Clay

Abstract

The time-dependent settlement of soft clays following application of surface loading may be modelled using elastic visco-plastic constitutive models to describe the soil behaviour. For applied loadings that increase the stresses to around the in-situ yield stress, the predicted behaviour is strongly influenced by the associated breakdown of clay structure and the way in which this is modelled. Four elastic visco-plastic models have been compared and all calculate the creep rate in fundamentally the same manner by comparison to the state at the same effective stress on a reference isotache.