Prediction of Plastic Localization Using MRS‐Lade Model

Abstract

Conditions for plastic localization, in terms of the possibility for discontinuous bifurcations of the incremental strain rate field, are given for the MRS‐Lade model. The susceptibility to bifurcation is examined along various loading paths for the selected medium dense sand. It is shown that the stress states that are achieved in the conventional triaxial compression (CTC) test are the least susceptible to bifurcation, since there will be no possibility for bifurcation throughout the entire loading history (including hardening and softening regions). Contrasting this behavior, plane strain states (PSA and PSP) admit a possibility for bifurcation already in the hardening regime. Consequently, it is expected that accurate predictions of the global load‐displacement response for specimens loaded under plane strain conditions cannot be obtained at the constitutive level, where it is assumed that the state of deformation is homogeneous.