Guidelines for Calibration and Use of the Severn-Trent Sand Model in Modeling Cantilevered Wall-Supported Excavations
Publication: International Journal of Geomechanics
Volume 14, Issue 6
Abstract
The Severn-Trent sand model is an advanced elastoplastic constitutive model that accurately reproduces the nonlinear mechanical response of coarse-grained soils at small to relatively high strain levels under monotonic loading. The model, formulated within the framework of critical state soil mechanics, includes advanced plasticity modeling concepts such as kinematic hardening, multisurface plasticity, and bounding surface plasticity. This paper shows how the use of Severn-Trent can be extended in modeling cantilevered wall-supported excavations. Following a brief description of the approach taken to introduce the constitutive model into a finite-difference commercial code, guidelines for the model calibration are discussed. Accounting for the approximation, which affects the evaluations of some variables, several plane-strain numerical analyses are performed. The parametric study aims to evaluate to what extent the response of a cantilevered retaining structure in a dry, normally consolidated Toyoura sand layer is influenced by these uncertainties. The results encourage the use of the Severn-Trent model in solving boundary value problems, such as excavations, particularly where accurate displacement field predictions are required.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
References
Argyris, J. H., Faust, G., Szimmat, J., Warnke, E. P., and Willam, K. J. (1973). “Recent development in finite element analysis of PCRV.” Proc., 2nd Int. Conf. SMIRT, Vol. 6, H1/1, International Association for Structural Mechanics in Reactor Technology, Berlin.
Bazaraa, A. R. S. S. (1967). “Use of the standard penetration test for estimating settlements of shallow foundations on sand.” Ph.D. thesis, Univ. of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, IL.
Been, K., and Jefferies, M. G. (1985). “A state parameter for sands.” Geotechnique, 35(2), 99–112.
Buselli, F., Di Sotto, A., Miliziano, S., and Zechini, A. (2011). “Different solutions of retaining structures in stiff clay.” Proc., XV European Conf. on Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering, IOS Press, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 1435–1440.
Chen, C., and Zhang, J. (2013). “Constitutive modeling of loose sands under various stress paths.” Int. J. Geomech., 1–8.
Chen, Y. J., and Kulhawy, F. H. (1994). “Case history evaluation of the behaviour of drilled shafts under axial and lateral loading.” Final Rep., Project 1493-04, EPRI TR-104601, Geotechnical Group, Cornell Univ., Ithaca, NY.
Dafalias, Y., Papadimitriou, A., and Li, X. (2004). “Sand plasticity model accounting for inherent fabric anisotropy.” J. Eng. Mech., 1319–1333.
FLAC 2D 5.0 [Computer software]. Minneapolis, Itasca Consulting Group.
Gajo, A., and Wood, D. M. (1999a). “A kinematic hardening constitutive model for sands: The multiaxial formulation.” Int. J. Numer. Anal. Methods Geomech., 23(9), 925–965.
Gajo, A., and Wood, M. (1999b). “Severn-Trent sand: A kinematic-hardening constitutive model: The q-p formulation.” Geotechnique, 49(5), 595–614.
Ghaboussi, J., and Momen, H. (1982). “Modelling and analysis of cyclic behaviour of sands.” Soil mechanics: Transient and cyclic loads, G. N. Pande and O. C. Zienkiewicz, eds., Wiley, New York, 313–342.
Gibbs, H. J., and Holtz, W. G. (1957). “Research on determining the density of sands by spoon penetration testing.” Proc., 4th Int. Conf. on Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering, Vol. 1, Butterworths, London, 35–39.
Hardin, B. O., and Black, W. L. (1966). “Sand stiffness under various triaxial stresses.” J. Soil Mech. and Found. Div., 92(2), 353–369.
Ishibashi, I. (1992). “Discussion of ‘Effect of soil plasticity on cyclic response’ by Mladen Vucetic and Ricardo Dobry (January, 1991, Vol. 117, No. 1).” J. Geotech. Engrg., 830–832.
Ishihara, K. (1993). “Liquefaction and flow failure during earthquakes.” Geotechnique, 43(3), 351–415.
Itasca Consulting Group. (2005). FLAC 5.0 user manual, Minneapolis.
Jaky, J. (1944). “The coefficient of earth pressure at rest.” J. Soc. Hung. Eng. Arch., 7, 355–358.
Jaky, J. (1948). “Pressure in silos.” Proc., 2nd Int. Conf. on Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering, Vol. 1, Balkema, Rotterdam, Netherlands, 103–107.
Jamiolkowski, M., Ladd, C. C., Germaine, J. T., and Lancellotta, R. (1985). “New developments in field and laboratory testing of soils.” Proc., 11th Int. Conf. on Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering, Vol. 1, Taylor & Francis, London, 57–153.
Jamiolkowski, M., Lancellotta, R., and Lo Presti, D. C. F. (1994). “Remarks on the stiffness at small strains of six Italian clays.” Proc., Int. Symp. on Pre-Failure Deformation of Geomaterials, Vol. 1, Balkema, Rotterdam, Netherlands, 95–114.
Lanzo, G., and D’Elia, B. (2003). “Cyclic properties of Toyoura sand at small to medium strains in simple shear test.” Rig, 36(2), 79–93.
Li, X. S. (2002). “A constitutive platform for sand modeling.” Proc., 15th Engineering Mechanics Conf., ASCE, New York.
Liu, C., and Muraleetharan, K. (2012). “Coupled hydro-mechanical elastoplastic constitutive model for unsaturated sands and silts. I: Formulation.” Int. J. Geomech., 239–247.
Mancuso, C., Silvestri, F., and Vinale, F. (1996). Soil dynamics, manuale di ingegneria civile, edizione scientifiche Cremonese, Vol. 1, Zanichelli, Rome, 810–858 (in Italian).
Manzari, M. T., and Dafalias, Y. F. (1997). “A critical state two-surface plasticity model for sands.” Geotechnique, 47(2), 255–272.
Marti, J., and Cundall, P. (1982). “Mixed discretization procedure for accurate modelling of plastic collapse.” Int. J. Numer. Anal. Methods Geomech., 6(1), 129–139.
MathWorks. (2003). MATLAB 6.5.1 user's guide, Natick, MA.
MATLAB 6.5.1 [Computer software]. Natick, MA, MathWorks.
Potts, D. M., and Zdravkovic, L. (1999). Finite element analysis in geotechnical engineering—Theory, Thomas Telford, London.
Rotisciani, G. M. (2010). “Implementation and use of advanced constitutive models for sands for solving boundary values problems: Study of the behavior of suction caissons.” Ph.D. thesis, Sapienza Università di Roma, Rome (in Italian).
Schnaid, F., Lehane, B. N., and Fahey, M. (2004). “In situ test characterization of unusual geomaterials.” Proc., 2nd Int. Conf. on Site Characterization, Vol. 1, Milpress, Porto, Portugal, 49–74.
Skempton, A. W. (1986). “Standard penetration tests procedures and the effects in sands of overburden pressure, relative density, particle size, ageing and overconsolidantion.” Geotechnique, 36(3), 425–447.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
International Journal of Geomechanics
Volume 14 • Issue 6 • December 2014
Copyright
© 2014 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Feb 18, 2013
Accepted: Nov 12, 2013
Published online: Nov 14, 2013
Discussion open until: Sep 2, 2014
Published in print: Dec 1, 2014
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.