Elasticity of Particulate Materials

Abstract

Problems associated with isolation, measurement, and modeling the elastic behavior of particulate materials are discussed. Because of pervasive yielding, exclusively elastic behavior of particulate materials is restricted to infinitesimal increments of unloading. Three‐dimensional elastic constitutive equations are formulated in terms of two scalar functions representing effects of void ratio and stress history, a reference fabric matrix, a stress‐compliance matrix, and a Poisson's ratio matrix. The stress‐compliance matrix accounts for the discovery in 1979 that elastic shear stiffness is independent of stress normal to the plane of shear. Transformation of coordinates and the definition of reference fabric are carefully considered in the developed formulation.