Constitutive Modeling of Gravelly Soil–Structure Interface Considering Particle Breakage

Abstract

The mechanical behavior of the interface between gravelly soils and structures may play a significant role on the response of many soil-structure systems to loading. Under cyclic excursion of shear stress, the gravelly soil in contact with the structural material may undergo particle breakage which could lead to significant volumetric deformation of the interface zone. This paper proposes a new elastoplastic constitutive model for simulating gravelly soil-structure interface behavior, including particle breakage. The model is formulated in the frameworks of two-surface plasticity and critical state soil mechanics. Particle breakage under shear cycles is simulated by a hyperbolic function of total plastic work to capture stress degradation and cyclic densification. The model requires a total of 10 parameters to predict both monotonic and cyclic responses. The same set of model parameters is required to simulate interface behavior for gravelly soils of different densities, and for different normal stresses and stress paths up to a large number of cycles. The performance of the proposed model is evaluated using experimental observations under different normal stresses and boundary conditions.