Formulation and Application of a New Critical State Model for Clays

Abstract

Realistic modeling of the mechanical behavior of soil with reasonable material input is essential for the practical use of numerical methods for the solution of geotechnical problems. The research conducted in this thesis dealt with the formulation of a new critical state model for heavily overconsolidated (OC) clays and clays under cyclic loading. A failure envelope based on the experimental findings enters into the model formulation. The peak strength of heavily OC clay can be predicted satisfactorily. Comprehensive comparisons of model predictions with test data are conducted on various clays (kaolin clay, Fujinomori clay and Boston Blue Clay) under various loading conditions to fully evaluate the capability of the proposed model. A well conductor in soft clay subjected to lateral loading is simulated by the proposed model in the commercial software ABAQUS through the user-defined model subroutine. The predicted head response agrees reasonably well with the centrifuge test results.