Abstract
It is shown that the use of visco-plastic shear or volumetric strain as the stress history-independent hardening parameter in an elasto-viscoplastic model for sand may result in inaccurate numerical simulations of geotechnical boundary value problems. A new elasto-viscoplastic constitutive model for sand is proposed, formulated based on a stress path-independent irreversible (or visco-plastic) strain energy-based hardening function. The function was derived based on results from drained plane strain compression (PSC) tests on saturated dense Toyoura sand along a wide variety of stress path. The model is coupled with an existing isotropically work-hardening and -softening, non-associated, elasto-plastic model for sand. The constitutive model takes into account the effects of loading rate due to viscous properties on the stress-strain behaviour as well as those of pressure level, inherent anisotropy and void ratio and work softening associated with strain localization into a shear band. It is shown that the proposed model can much better simulate the effects of stress history on the deformation characteristics of sand than many previous models. The FEM code incorporating the model is validated by simulating physical PSC tests and bearing capacity model tests of a strip footing on sand performed by previous studies.