Settlement Analysis for An Embankment Considering Visco-Elasto-Plastic Characteristics

In the paper. a visco-elasto plastic constitutive model and a method for determining model parameters for soft clay are presented. In this model total strain of soft clay is assumed to be divided into three parts: instantaneous elastic, visco-elastic and visco-plastic. The characteristics of instantaneous and visco-elastic deformation of soft clay are simulated by Merchant's model, the plastic is by a model with two yield surfaces. And related constitutive equation is conducted. A number of stress-controlled triaxial tests are performed to calculated the model parameters. The visco-elasto-plastic model is used for analysis of the displacement of an embankment on soft ground by use of three-dimensional finite element method. The predicted settlements agree well with the measured data. It is indicated that the viscous characteristics should be taken into account in deformation analysis for soft clay.

Model Test and Numerical Analysis on Long-Term Mechanical Properties of Stepped Reinforced Retaining Wall

Model tests and numerical analyses of stepped reinforced retaining wall were performed to investigate the effects of rheology of backfill and creep of geogrids on the long-term performance of the structure.The geogrid tensions,soil pressures,wall deformations and foundation pressure were measured during model construction and loading.A visco-elasto-plastic model and an empirical nonlinear visco-elastic model were utilized to simulate the stresses and deformations of geogrid-reinforced earth-retaining wall under long-term loads.By comparing test data with numerical results,it is shown that the foundation pressure distribution is nonlinear,and the lateral constraint of geogrids for backfill can cause a redistribution of foundation pressure.The curve of soil pressure is outside convex at each step initially,and it is close to the distribution for the case of vertical wall subsequently.The variation trend of geogrid tensions at different heights is obtained.Moreover,the failure mechanism and development mode of potential slip surface in retaining wall are proposed.

A Constitutive Model of Granite Shear Creep under Moisture

Previous constitutive models of granite shear creep have two limitations：（1） although moisture greatly affects granite shear creep behavior, currently there are no constitutive models that include this factor;（2） there are also no models that include an acceleration stage. This paper presents an improved Burgers constitutive model with the addition of a damage parameter to characterize the moisture effect and uses a nonlinear relation equation between stress and strain for inclusion as the acceleration stage. The damage parameter is determined from granite creep experiment under four different moisture contents（0%, 0.22%, 0.49%, and 0.79%）. The nonlinear relation equation is obtained by fitting a dataset of stain versus time under five different loading stages. To verify the presented model, a creep experiment was conducted on other granite samples and the results show that the model agrees well with the experimental observation data.