Constitutive, Physical, and Numerical Modeling in Transportation Geotechnics

A collection of nine papers that were previously published in the International Journal of Geomechanics has been compiled by the authors and is derived from those papers presented at the GeoHunan International Conference II: Emerging Technologies for Design, Construction, Rehabilitation, and Inspections of Transportation Infrastructure, held in Changsha, Hunan, China on June 9–11, 2011.

The constitutive behaviors of geomaterials under complex conditions, including those involving large and/or time-dependent deformations, play important roles in many geosystems and have been the subject of numerous investigations in the last several decades. Recently, advanced modeling and numerical simulation techniques in geomechanics, such as the fuzzy set theory, micropolar continuum approach, and meshfree methods, have been used to improve understanding of ability to simulate these behaviors. The nine papers included in this collection covering such advanced modeling and numerical simulations are different from traditional constitutive modeling in geomechanics. The two papers contributed by Zuo et al. (2012) and by Xu et al. (2012) cover the stability and rheological deformations of rock masses around deep excavated tunnels. The numerical analyses in both papers confirm that the time-dependent response of rock mass and tunnel needs to be carefully considered in the analysis, design, and construction of tunnels in rock. The two papers contributed by He (2012) and by Chen and Qiu (2012) are related to the application of meshfree methods in the simulation of geosystems. The meshfree local Petrov-Garlerkin method is used by He (2012) to investigate the bearing capacity and response of extended-length piles, and the smoothed particle hydrodynamics method is used by Chen and Qiu (2012) to simulate the collapse of axisymmetric granular columns. Both papers demonstrate that meshfree methods are powerful numerical tools in simulating large deformations in geomaterials. Tsukamoto et al. (2012) conducted two sets of large-scale shaking table tests to examine the postliquefaction settlement of rigid circular foundations founded on the surface of saturated clean fine sand. The data obtained from their efficiently controlled tests are valuable tools for validation of numerical models. The remaining four papers address various aspects of constitutive behavior of granular materials. Based on the micropolar continuum approach, Liu et al. (2012a) compared three rolling friction models for the particle-contact behavior and confirmed that the rolling friction tangential force has little effect on the final sandpile configuration. Xiao et al. (2012) presented a formulation of cross-anisotropic failure criterion for granular materials, which can be used to describe the variation of strength because of the change of principal orientation of the material microstructure. Based on their discrete element method simulations and experiments of sandpile formation, Liu et al. (2012b) investigated the influence of the evolution of length scale on the strain localization in granular materials. Chen and Zhang (2013) applied the fuzzy set plasticity theory to simulate the behavior of loose sand under various stress paths, and excellent agreement was observed between their simulation and experimental results.

All papers cited here can be found online in the ASCE Library (www.ascelibrary.org).