Cyclic response of granular soils evaluated through a strain hardening model incorporated into the generalized plasticity framework

In this study, constitutive behavior of granular soils is modeled through a generalized plasticity-based theoretical framework. The soil hardening is addressed by a novel relationship proposed to calculate plastic strains and their evolution during loading history. The model is effective in predicting the response and incorporating it into a numerical scheme. Focus is given to stress ratios yielding liquefaction in a few stress cycles. The proposed hardening law is based upon a combined deviatoric-volumetric hardening rule updating the stress-strain relationship and plastic strain vector. Numerous undrained monotonic and cyclic triaxial tests are simulated for verification of the constitutive formulation. Results indicate that the developed model for sand-like cohesionless soils proves to match fairly well with the available experimental data. Plastic strains are calculated accurately and accumulated pore pressures are well captured. Triaxial test simulations exhibit a successfully improved way of capturing the essential static and cyclic behavior of granular soils.