A unified constitutive model for unsaturated soil under monotonic and cyclic loading

This study presents a sophisticated elastoplastic constitutive model for unsaturated soil using Bishop-type skeleton stress and degree of saturation as state variables in the framework of critical state soil mechanism. The model is proposed in order to describe the coupled hydromechanical behavior of unsaturated soil irrespective of what kind of the loadings or the drainage conditions may be. At the same time, a water retention characteristic curve considering the influence of deformation on degree of saturation is also proposed. In the model, the superloading and subloading concepts are introduced to consider the influences of overconsolidation and structure on deformation and strength of soils. The proposed model only employs nine parameters, among which five parameters are the same as those used in Cam-Clay model. The other four parameters have the clear physical meanings and can be easily determined by conventional soil tests. The capability and accuracy of the proposed model have been validated carefully through a series of laboratory tests such as isotropic loading tests and triaxial monotonic and cyclic compression tests under different mechanical and hydraulic conditions.

     

Evaluation of hydraulic conductivity of gap-graded granular soils based on equivalent void ratio concept

Gap-graded granular soils are used as construction materials worldwide, and their hydraulic conductivity depends on their relative content of coarse and fine grains, initial conditions, and particle shape. In this study, a series of constant head hydraulic conductivity tests were performed on gap-graded granular soils with different initial relative densities, fine contents, and particle shapes. The test results show that the hydraulic conductivity decreases with an increase in fine fraction and then remains approximately constant beyond the “transitional fine content.” The role of the structural effect on the hydraulic conductivity is different from that on the mechanical properties (such as stiffness and shear strength). This can be attributed to the degree of filling within inter-aggregate voids, disturbance of soil structure, and densified fine bridges between coarse aggregates. The equivalent void ratio concept was introduced into the Kozeny–Carman formula to capture the effect of fines (aggregates) on the “coarse-dominated” (“fine-dominated”) structure, and a simple model is proposed to capture the change of hydraulic conductivity of gap-granular soils. The model incorporates a structural variable to capture the effect of fines on “coarse-dominated” structure and coarse aggregates on “fine-dominated” structure. The performance of the model was verified with experimental data from this study and previously reported data compiled from the literature. The results reveal that the proposed model is simple yet effective at capturing the hydraulic conductivity of gap-graded granular soils with a wide range of fine contents, initial conditions, and particle shapes.

     

水泥加固不同地区软土的试验研究

对不同地区软土经水泥加固后的强度形成特征进行了研究。进行直接剪切试验及无侧限抗压试验测定了水泥加固土的力学指标,发现不同地区的软土经水泥加固后力学性质存在很大差异,从试样的粒度成分、有机质含量及加固后试样的微观结构特征等方面对此进行解释。结果表明,试样的粒度成分及有机质含量会对加固效果产生很大影响,黏粒含量越大,有机质含量越高,对水泥加固土强度的形成越不利。为在用水泥进行不同性质的软土加固处理时采取合理的附加措施提供了理论依据。     

Effects of confining pressure and loading path on deformation and strength of cohesive granular materials: a three-dimensional DEM analysis

This paper is devoted to numerical analysis of strength and deformation of cohesive granular materials. The emphasis is put on the study of effects of confining pressure and loading path. To this end, the three-dimensional discrete element method is used. A nonlinear failure criterion for inter-granular interface bonding is proposed, and it is able to account for both tensile and shear failure for a large range of normal stress. This criterion is implemented in the particles flow code. The proposed failure model is calibrated from triaxial compression tests performed on representative sandstone. Numerical results are in good agreement with experimental data. In particular, the effect of confining pressure on compressive strength and failure pattern is well described by the proposed model. Furthermore, numerical predictions are studied, respectively, for compression and extension tests with a constant mean stress. It is shown that the failure strength and deformation process are clearly affected by loading path. Finally, a series of numerical simulations are performed on cubic samples with three independent principal stresses. It is found that the strength and failure mode are strongly influenced by the intermediate principal stress.

     

An elastoplastic constitutive model for frozen saline coarse sandy soil undergoing particle breakage

The mechanical property of frozen saline sandy soil is complicated due to its complex components and sensitivity to salt content and confining pressure. Thus, a series of triaxial compression tests were carried out on sandy samples with different Na₂SO₄ contents under different confining pressures to explore the effects of particle breakage, pressure melting, shear dilation and strain softening or hardening. The test results indicate that the stress–strain curves exhibit strain softening/hardening phenomena when the confining pressures are below or above 6 MPa, respectively. A shear dilation phenomenon was observed in the loading process. With increasing confining pressure, the strength firstly increases and then decreases. By taking into consideration the changes between the grain size distributions before and after triaxial compression tests, a failure strength line incorporating the influences of both particle breakage and pressure melting is proposed. In order to describe the deformation characteristics of frozen saline sandy soil, an elastoplastic incremental constitutive model is established based on the test results. The proposed model considers the plastic compressive, plastic shear and breakage mechanisms by adopting the non-associated flow rule. The breakage mechanism can be reflected by an index related to the initial, current and ultimate grain size distributions. The hardening parameters corresponding to compressive and shear mechanisms consider the influence of particle breakage. Then the effect of particle breakage on both the stress–strain and volumetric strain curves is analyzed. The calculated results fit well with the test results, indicating that the developed constitutive model can well describe the mechanical and deformation features of frozen saline sandy soil under various stress levels and stress paths. In addition, the strain softening/hardening, contraction, high dilation and particle breakage can be well captured.

     

无黏性土的压缩特性及模型

我国南海神狐海域海底沉积物主要由钙质砂与无黏性土组成,其力学性质对海洋工程的稳定性具有显著影响。无黏性土的压缩特性是研究其力学性能的重要内容之一,为分析不同荷载作用下土样的压缩特性,利用高压三轴仪试验系统,开展了不同砂含量及不同初始孔隙比下无黏性土样的等向压缩试验。试验结果表明:在试验采用的高有效应力下,无黏性土具有显著的过渡土性质,初始组构难以被改变;随多孔易碎钙质砂含量的增加,土样可压缩性和压缩曲线的收敛度均增加,钙质砂的破碎显著改变了初始组构。提出可以描述含砂无黏性土压缩特性的数学模型,所含参数物理意义明确且易于确定。与不同砂土压缩试验数据对比发现,该模型对其他种类土同样具有较好的拟合度,验证了本模型的广泛适用性。与已有压缩模型的对比,验证了本模型的实用性,为无黏性土应力-应变关系的理论研究提供基础。     

Strength of two structured soils in triaxial compression

Oil sands are dense granular materials with interlocked structure and clay shales are heavily overconsolidated clays. They are classified as structured soil or weak rock, exhibiting high peak strength with severe softening and dilation, particularly at low confining stress. The triaxial compression test results indicate that both materials yield linear Mohr–Coulomb envelopes with an apparent cohesion for peak and residual strengths. However, the strength components mobilized from these two materials are very different. This paper investigates if these strength parameters are intrinsic properties or responses derived in triaxial compression conditions. Computer tomography scanning technique is used to aid in examining the micro‐structural features of the sheared specimens such as shear banding pattern, shear band thickness, spatial porosity distributions inside and outside shear bands. These micro‐structural features are used to explain the macro‐deformation response observed in the triaxial compression tests. Mobilization of strength components derived from interlocked structure, cementation, dilation, rolling and critical state are analysed for pre‐, post‐peak softening and residual stages. It is found that the empirical correlation such as Mohr–Coulomb failure criterion based on triaxial compression test results does not necessarily reflect the intrinsic properties of the test materials. Testing conditions are embedded in the empirical correlation. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Adaptation of an existing constitutive model for describing mechanical behaviour of cemented granular soils

In this paper, an existing elastoplastic constitutive model, originally developed for granular soils, is adapted to describe the stress–strain behaviour of cemented granular soils. The existing model (CJS), due to its modular formulation, can be easily developed to take into account different supplementary behavioural aspects in soil mechanics. In the present study, the failure mechanism of the CJS model is modified by introducing the essential aspects in the behaviour of cemented granular soils in its formulation. All of the model parameters have clear physical meaning and can be identified using classical laboratory tests. A set of direct relations between model parameters and famous mechanical parameters of soils such as internal friction angle and cohesion at peak and residual states is presented. In order to validate the model, the results of triaxial and uniaxial tests in the compression and extension performed on cemented granular materials are used. The validation results indicate the good capability of the proposed model.     

An Anisotropic Model for Granular Material Based on Experiments

Soil is a heterogeneous material and most natural soil deposits show a definite stratification. The mechanical behaviour of such material is generally different in different directions, especially in the direction parallel and perpendicular to the stratification. A series of isotropic compression tests were carried out to study the behavior of granular material produced under controlled stratification in the laboratory. These tests were conducted both on cylindrical and square prismatic tri-axial specimens. It was observed that for hydrostatic loading, the strain response was different in different directions, especially in directions parallel and perpendicular to the direction of soil deposition. A definite trend of anisotropy was observed in the deformation pattern. The observed anisotropy is modeled in this paper by treating soil-dilatancy as a variable quantity. The equation of the plastic potential surface of the model which obeys a non-associated flow rule, is assumed to be dependent on three main variables confining pressure (\(\sigma_{3}\)), void ratio (e) and the angle of bedding plane orientation (δ) during deposition. The angle of bedding plane orientation (δ) was measured with respect to the direction of the major principal stress. The model has a cap yield surface in the isotropic stress direction, which is supplemented by a shear hardening Mohr–Coulomb surface in the deviator direction. This paper focuses on predicting the anisotropic strain response of stratified soil deposits subjected to isotropic compression. The proposed anisotropic model incorporates within an existing strain-hardening sand model, a modified cap yield surface and a modified plastic potential function related to the cap surface, to account for the anistropic response observed in isotropic compression tests. The two dimensional stress–strain model was extended to three dimensional Cartesian space. The strain anisotropy observed in the isotropic compression tests was predicted by the three dimensional anisotropic model proposed for granular materials.     

Measurement of local and volumetric deformation in geotechnical triaxial testing using 3D-digital image correlation and a subpixel edge detection algorithm

Based on the three-dimensional digital image correlation (3D-DIC) technique, the stereovision system has been applied to the improved triaxial apparatus to obtain 3D full-field deformation of the specimen during triaxial testing. Through the calibration process, the 3D-DIC technique can obtain the accurate specimen’s spatial displacement deformation. Meanwhile, a subpixel edge detection algorithm has been combined with 3D-DIC technique to calculate the radial strain and the volume strain of the specimen directly. Furthermore, a series of consolidated drained and undrained triaxial tests were carried out on Hainan (China) sand specimens and measured by the conventional and the image measurement methods. Compared to the results measured by the conventional method, the image measurement technique can obtain the more experimental data, such as the 3D displacement field of the whole specimen, the local strain distribution, and so on. The measurement results also show the conventional method would be disturbed by the end constraints in triaxial tests so that the strength of the soil would be overestimated. Meanwhile, the middle of the specimen would be selected to calculate the stress–strain relationship without the influence of the end constraints in the proposed method. Based on the image measurement results, the proposed method has the potential to be used in geotechnical tests for exploring the soil’s progressive failure behaviors, inhomogeneous deformation and mechanical characteristics.

     

非饱和土三轴压缩应力路径试验的数值模拟研究

应力路径对土的强度和变形性质具有重要影响。相对于饱和土而言,控制吸力条件下的非饱和土三轴压缩状态的应力路径研究更加复杂。随着非饱和土本构理论的不断发展,理论和试验研究结果表明,非饱和土弹塑性本构模型可以用来近似地描述非饱和土的强度和变形性质。因而,运用非饱和土弹塑性本构模型对控制吸力条件下的3种非饱和土三轴压缩应力路径试验进行数值模拟是一种有效的理论研究手段。采用Barcelona模型能够对此类试验进行较好的数值模拟,其研究结果表明,在控制吸力条件的三轴压缩状态下应力路径对非饱和土的强度和变形性质具有重要影响。     

基于透明土的静压楔形桩沉桩效应模型试验研究

楔形桩是一种可以有效提高桩侧摩阻力的纵向变截面异形桩,然而针对该变截面桩沉桩效应特性方面的研究却相对较少。基于透明土材料和粒子图像测速技术（简称PIV）,开展静压楔形桩沉桩模型试验,测得沉桩过程中桩周土体的位移场变化规律;沉桩过程中桩周土体位移场由激光射入透明土材料,与透明土材料之间的相互作用产生的独特散斑场,通过CCD（charge-coupled device）电荷耦合元件相机成像处理而获得。同时进行了等截面桩的沉桩模型试验,并对等混凝土材料用量情况下楔形桩和等截面桩的沉桩效应进行对比分析。最后,将此试验结果与基于常规试验手段的静压楔形桩沉桩模型试验和圆孔扩张理论计算结果进行对比分析,验证了基于透明土材料的静压楔形桩沉桩模型试验的准确性和可靠性。研究结果表明,基于透明土材料和PIV技术可以有效地开展静压楔形桩沉桩模型试验研究;楔形桩静压施工过程中对桩周土的影响范围约为等混凝土用量等截面桩的1.2倍。     

Reconstructing granular particles from X-ray computed tomography using the TWS machine learning tool and the level set method

X-ray computed tomography (CT) has emerged as the most prevalent technique to obtain three-dimensional morphological information of granular geomaterials. A key challenge in using the X-ray CT technique is to faithfully reconstruct particle morphology based on the discretized pixel information of CT images. In this work, a novel framework based on the machine learning technique and the level set method is proposed to segment CT images and reconstruct particles of granular geomaterials. Within this framework, a feature-based machine learning technique termed Trainable Weka Segmentation is utilized for CT image segmentation, i.e., to classify material phases and to segregate particles in contact. This is a fundamentally different approach in that it predicts segmentation results based on a trained classifier model that implicitly includes image features and regression functions. Subsequently, an edge-based level set method is applied to approach an accurate characterization of the particle shape. The proposed framework is applied to reconstruct three-dimensional realistic particle shapes of the Mojave Mars Simulant. Quantitative accuracy analysis shows that the proposed framework exhibits superior performance over the conventional watershed-based method in terms of both the pixel-based classification accuracy and the particle-based segmentation accuracy. Using the reconstructed realistic particles, the particle-size distribution is obtained and validated against experiment sieve analysis. Quantitative morphology analysis is also performed, showing promising potentials of the proposed framework in characterizing granular geomaterials.

     

A bounding surface model for unsaturated soils considering the microscopic pore structure and interparticle bonding effect due to water menisci

The interparticle bonding effect due to water menisci plays an important role in the hydromechanical coupling properties of unsaturated soils. This paper presents an unsaturated hydromechanical coupling model that considers the influence of matric suction, degree of saturation, and microscopic pore structure on the interparticle bonding effect. The enhanced effective stress and bonding variable are selected as constitutive variables. The bonding variable is correlated with the ratio between unsaturated void ratio and saturated void ratio. The deformation characteristics of unsaturated soils are described based on the bounding surface plasticity theory. A soil–water characteristic model that considers deformation and hydraulic hysteresis is integrated into the constitutive model to achieve hydromechanical coupling. The proposed model can effectively describe the hydromechanical coupling characteristics and the meniscus bonding force of unsaturated bimodal structure soils; the model parameters can be easily obtained through routine experiments. The experimental results of unsaturated isotropic compression, the wetting/drying cycle, and unsaturated triaxial shear tests are used to validate the capability of the proposed model.

     

Evaluation of the compression index of soils using an artificial neural network

The compression index is a one of the important soil parameters that is essential to geotechnical designs. As the determination of the compression index from consolidation tests is relatively time-consuming, empirical formulas based on soil parameters can be useful. Over the decades, a number of empirical formulas have been proposed to relate the compressibility to other soil parameters, such as the natural water content, liquid limit, plasticity index, specific gravity, and others. Each of the existing empirical formulas yields good results for a particular test set, but cannot accurately or reliably predict the compression index from various test sets. In this study, an alternative approach, an artificial neural network (ANN) model, is proposed to estimate the compression index with numerous consolidation test sets. The compression index was modeled as a function of seven variables including the natural water content, liquid limit, plastic index, specific gravity, and soil types. Nine hundred and forty-seven consolidation tests for soils sampled at 67 construction sites in the Republic of Korea were used for the training and testing of the ANN model. The predicted results showed that the neural network could provide a better performance than the empirical formulas.     

粒状介质三维复杂应力加载离散元数值试验方法

实际荷载条件下（如交通、地震荷载）,粒状岩土材料常受到三维复杂应力路径作用。目前,多数粒状岩土材料的本构理论和模型都基于简单应力路径加载条件下的物理试验提出,在更加复杂应力路径下的适用性则需要进一步验证。但受机械控制的限制,物理试验中无法实现很多客观存在的三维复杂应力路径加载。为了能够再现并分析三维复杂应力路径下粒状介质的力学响应,提出了一种离散元数值试验方法,该方法采用球形数值试样,通过直接控制试样边界应力达到对3个主应力大小和方向的任意控制,从而可以实现诸多物理试验中无法实现的复杂应力路径。通过与目前常见的一些物理试验进行定性对比,论证了该数值试验方法通过高精度的加载控制和测量能够再现已有物理试验现象。在此基础上,进一步开展了应力主轴的三维旋转,分析了在这种实际存在却无法通过物理试验再现的加载条件下粒状介质的变形规律,初步显示了提出的数值试验方法在深入研究三维复杂应力路径下粒状介质力学响应方面所拥有的能力和优势。     

毛细水作用下非饱和土压缩过程的微观非连续变形数值分析

研究非饱和土微结构的动态演化规律对认识非饱和土宏观物理力学行为的本质有重要意义。然而目前岩土学界对此尚不清楚。文章提出利用毛细水算法进行非饱和土压缩数值试验,研究其宏观变形过程中土水作用与孔隙的演变规律。首先参考黄土骨架颗粒的形态和优势颗粒的大小,建立了540 μm×400 μm理想的非饱和土微观结构模型;其次利用毛细...     

砂土颗粒形状量化及其对力学指标的影响分析

砂作为一种特殊的散体材料,其宏观物理力学性质,如密实度、剪切特性（临界状态角,剪胀角）、压缩性及颗粒破碎特征等均受到颗粒形状的影响,目前为止,对于砂粒土颗粒形状的量化工作,未到达成熟阶段。试验采用普通光学显微镜获取3种不同砂颗粒及一种相似材料（玻璃球）数字图像,利用ImageJ图形软件对其进行黑白二值化处理,获取颗粒形状轮廓边界;从3个层次定义颗粒形状参数,并利用java语言编制形状量化插件程序,计算砂粒各形状参数值,最后通过相对密度试验、直剪试验测试不同砂样的极限孔隙比、剪切强度指标。试验结果表明：整体轮廓系数、球形度、棱角度3项形状参数可作为不同砂粒形状鉴别和量化的关键参数,且与剪胀角、临界状态摩擦角均具有良好的相关性,试验提供了一种量化砂颗粒形状的有效方法,并可将得到的关键量化参数应用到宏观力学性质分析与数值模拟工作中     

武汉黏土Duncan本构模型参数研究

通过常规三轴压缩排水试验,确定了武汉正常固结黏土的Duncan Et-?t模型、Et-Bt模型及常值?t模型参数;通过三轴试样的有限元变形分析,验证了模型参数的合理性与有效性,为武汉地区Duncan本构模型的应用提供了参考。针对Duncan Et-?t模型基于?1-?3曲线为双曲线关系假设,而实际试验曲线常常偏离理想的双曲线关系,造成?t参数拟合的困难,提出利用通过应力水平为70 %与95 %对应点的直线拟合?3 /?1与?3之间线性关系从而确定?t模型参数的改进方法,并将该模型参数用于三轴试样的体积变形预测,经与Duncan Et-Bt、Duncan Et和常值?t模型参数预测结果的对比,发现该方法与试验结果有更好的一致性,并具有简单方便的优点。