Using experimental design to assess rate-dependent numerical models

Abstract

To enhance the accuracy of advanced constitutive models for soft natural clays, several parameters are necessary, resulting in complexity of numerical modelling. However, the detailed effects of these parameters are not rigorously quantified towards their constitutive relationships. Thus, the aim of the paper is to assess such advanced models in order to determine the most significant parameters over the time series data. Two methods for Global Sensitivity Analysis (GSA), i.e. Experimental Design and the Sobol method, were used and benchmarked to assess the model predictions on a discretised domain in time and space. A rate-dependent Finite Element model using Creep-SCLAY1S and a hydro-mechanically coupled formulation for consolidation was used to study a Constant Rate of Strain (CRS) test. The value of GSA approaches adopted herein was to investigate the model predictions both in the temporal and spatial domain. The temporal analyses indicate three sets of significant model parameters in different portions of the CRS compression curve. Furthermore, the non-stationary nature of sensitivity results is exposed, identifying the parameters that lead to unique solutions for the CRS loading path. The FE implementation enabled the quantification of the most sensitive model parameters in the spatial domain. The spatial results that are governed by the rate-dependent processes in the soil (i.e. consolidation and creep) illustrated that Experimental Design was capable of providing sensitivity maps with satisfactory accuracy similar to the Sobol method. Experimental Design was found to be the most efficient method, concerning execution time and storage costs, to assess rate-dependent problems in Geotechnics.