Stress‐Path‐Dependent Correction for Membrane Penetration

Abstract

A general procedure for stress‐path‐dependent correction of the effects of membrane penetration has been developed. The correction procedure makes use of an analytical description of membrane‐penetration behavior incorporated into a constitutive model for granular soil. The procedure, which recognizes and explicitly accounts for the partially drained nature of a test in which membrane compliance occurs, can be applied to conventional (solid sample), hollow cylinder, or cubical triaxial tests with static or cyclic loading. The accuracy of the correction procedure was verified by a laboratory testing program. Since the procedure is formulated so that any constitutive model capable of representing the stress‐path‐dependent behavior of interest may be used, its accuracy will further increase as improved constitutive models are developed.