A Consistent Soil Fatigue Framework Based on the Number of Equivalent Cycles

Abstract

Cyclic soil degradation and hardening affects soil stiffness and strength, and is linked to an increase or decrease in the mean effective confining stress due to void ratio or pore pressure changes. This change of state can be explicitly modeled by using effective stress methods, or implicitly modeled using total stress methods. In the latter, this is achieved by using empirical functions based on the number of loading cycles that are derived from constant-amplitude stress or strain laboratory tests. To suite generalized loading conditions, these functions must be extrapolated to variable-amplitude loading. This falls under the general class of a fatigue-based problem. The main focus of this paper is to present a generalized consistent soil fatigue formulation for soils under cyclic loading. The paper then goes on to discuss the implementation of various cyclic soil degradation and hardening models reported in the literature, and highlights their important underlying assumptions, capabilities and limitations.