An isotach elastoplastic constitutive model for natural soft clays

Abstract

The time and strain rate dependency observed in natural soft clays is formulated within the framework of conventional elastoplasticity. Creep of soft clays is essentially like the response of an overdamped oscillatory system, i.e., the strain rate decays in an exponential manner. A characteristic strain rate and time relationship is presented based on data from creep tests on a large number of different soft clays. The evolutionary change of strain rate is found to affect the mechanical response of soft clays in an isotach manner. Taking strain rate as another stress-like variable, a loading–isotach (LI) yield curve is proposed, which describes the combined hardening mechanisms of loading and variation of strain rate. Incorporation of this LI yield curve into critical state soil mechanics results in an isotach elastoplastic (IEP) model in triaxial stress–strain–strain rate space, which has been dubbed ‘Hunter Clay’. The effects of fabric anisotropy and inter-particle cementation, which are typical features of natural soft clays, are also introduced to produce an advanced hierarchical constitutive model for soft clay. Qualitative predictions are first described and compared with the characteristic behaviour of natural soft clays. Experimental validations using test data for two soft clays are then carried out, and comparisons of the model predictions and experimental data demonstrate the capability of the model in reproducing realistic behaviour of natural soft clays. This work confirms that the complex mechanical behaviour of natural soft clays can be reproduced satisfactorily within the general framework of classical plasticity theory.