A Nonlinear Constitutive Model for Soil under Complex Stress State

Abstract

It is fundamental to predict the stress-strain behavior of soils to control the stability of the geotechnical engineering. A Duncan-Chang constitutive model is analyzed and found that it ignores the effect of the intermediate principal stress. A unified strength theory is investigated and revised. The lode parameter is introduced into the unified strength theory. The unified friction angle and cohesion which may reflect the influence of the intermediate principal stress and verified by the polyaxial tests are obtained. The compressive strength revised from the unified strength theory is used to replace the Mohr-Coulomb criterion and introduced into the Duncan-Chang model. A modified constitutive model is proposed, which is verified by the plane strain tests. The result shows that the modified constitutive can reflect the effect of the intermediate principal stress, and the Duncan-Chang model is a special case of the modified model when b=0.