Cap Plasticity Model for Thawing Soil

A material model for soft, wet soil was generated to simulate the deformation behavior of thawing soil under vehicle loading on paved and unpaved roads. The soil modeled, a frost-susceptible fine sand called Lebanon Sand, was subjected to a full suite of saturated and unsaturated triaxial testing duplicating conditions experienced during large-scale freeze—thaw testing. Material parameters were generated for a capped Drucker—Prager plasticity model with hardening. These were calibrated in triaxial test simulations using the commercial finite element code ABAQUS. The material model was then implemented in several three-dimensional finite element simulations for validation and robustness.