I. Constitutive Relations for a Granular Material. II. The Distribution of Stresses and Development of Failure at the Toe of a Slope and Around the Tip of a Crack
<p>In the first part of this thesis, a three-dimensional rheological model was constructed to represent the deformation behavior of a granular material. The constitutive relations for a granular material were subsequently derived. The rheological model was conceived from the observed be...
| Summary: | <p>In the first part of this thesis, a three-dimensional rheological
model was constructed to represent the deformation behavior of a
granular material. The constitutive relations for a granular material
were subsequently derived. The rheological model was conceived
from the observed behavior of granular material from laboratory
experiments and from theoretical considerations. The constitutive
relations were expressed in incremental forms to account for the
stress history and loading path dependency of a granular material's
behavior, such as non-linearity, initial or induced anisotropy, history
and path dependency, and shear dilatance.</p>
<p>The qualitative and quantitative behavior of a granular material
such as sand under shear stress from experimental results and from
the proposed constitutive relations was examined and compared. It
was found that the experimental data and the proposed constitutive
relations were in close agreement.</p>
<p>Due to the number of parameters involved, and the non-symmetrical
resulting stiffness matrix in a general stress-strain formulation,
it is difficult to apply the proposed constitutive in a finite element
computer formulation at the present state of the art. Consequently
the application of finite element methods to non-linear problems was
examined in more detail as a preliminary step. The effect, or the
results of the material properties, the finite element mesh size and
the computational procedure was examined in detail in Part II of this thesis.</p>
|
|---|