Threshold Shear Strain for Dynamic Ramberg-Osgood Model in Soils Based on Thermomechanics

Abstract

The threshold shear strain is a fundamental property of the soil behavior subjected to cyclic loading. Starting from the unloading and reloading hysteretic curves of dynamic Ramberg-Osgood model, construct small-strain dynamic dissipation function and explain small-strain dynamic characteristics by use of the skeleton curve back stress assumption. The plotting results of yield curves in true stress space indicate that there exist two threshold shear strains which are defined as the first threshold shear strain and the second threshold shear strain respectively which represent boundaries between fundamentally different dynamic characteristics of cyclic soil behavior. The yields of soil are controlled by the constant friction coefficient, the variable friction coefficient and dilatancy-related microstructural changes respectively. Both the first threshold shear strain and the second threshold shear strain do depend significantly on the maximum dynamic shear modulus coefficient and exponent. Comparison between the two threshold shear strain values and shear modulus reduction curves obtained on exactly the same soils confirms that the soil behavior is considerably at nonlinear at , the secant shear modulus, Gs, of the four soils studied is between 0.6 and 0.8 of its maximum value.