A qualitative study of the stress-strain behavior of a cohesionless material within the framework of a second order cauchy elastic constitutive relation

Abstract

The second order Cauchy elastic constitutive relation was shown to adequately model the qualitative nonlinear stress-strain loading behavior of a dry, dense, cohesionless sand for drained conditions and rate independent, isothermal processes. An experimental program was conducted on a dry, dense, cohesionless sand under drained conditions. Specimens were tested under hydrostatic compression, hydrostatic compression imposed on uniaxial strain, and hydrostatic compression imposed on constant confining pressure and constant mean normal pressure triaxial compression conditions, where all of the components of the stress tenor and displacement vectors were determined on the specimen boundaries subject to the assumption of uniform stress and strain conditions. The material constants in the assumed constitutive relation were determined from the hydrostatic compression, and hydrostatic compression imposed on uniaxial strain test results. This constitutive relation with the determined material constants was then utilized to predict motions for the conditions of hydrostatic compression imposed on constant confining pressure and constant mean normal stress triaxial shear; the predictions were found to compare favorably with the experimental data. The model was also used to make predictions for simple shear conditions..