From Direct Simple Shear Test to Soil Model Development and Supported Excavation Simulation: Integrated Computational-Experimental Soil Behavior Characterization Framework

Abstract

A constitutive model that represents soil behavior under a wide range of loading conditions is necessary for the simulation of complex boundary value problems. However, most laboratory tests are interpreted with an assumption of uniform stresses and strains within the tested soil specimen even when the specimen is known to experience nonuniform stress-strain distribution as in the direct simple shear (DSS) test. Numerous tests are often needed to fully characterize a soil’s nonlinear and anisotropic behavior and to develop an appropriate soil model. This paper utilizes an evolutionary inverse analysis approach to extract nonuniform stresses and strains within