KINEMATIC HARDENING OF SOFT CLAY IN SIMPLE SHEAR

In a separate paper, the authors have proposed a normalized, non-degrading form of the shear stress-shear strain relationship for undrained, cyclic simple shear of soft clay. This relationship is described in the present paper, and it is seen to include a single fatigue parameter - the mean effective stress. Application of the relationship therefore requires knowledge of the history of the mean effective stress during any loading history. The present paper proposes an effective stress path model which may be used for prediction of this history. The model is developed within the framework of bounding surface kinematic and isotropic hardening plasticity. It incorporates an isotropic hardening bounding surface, and a kinematic hardening yield surface, in which the elastic region vanishes, and so the yield surface reduces to the stress point. The normalized shear stress-shear strain relationship, developed on the basis of Iwan's model, is used to establish the shape of the cap of the bounding surface. A new translation rule is also incorporated in the model, allowing improved prediction of stress path development within the bounding surface during regular or irregular cyclic loading. Use of the proposed model to simulate the behaviour of soft clay in laboratory undrained cyclic simple shear tests shows excellent qualitative agreement, with most of the major features of the actual behaviour being predicted.