Using a non linear constitutive law to compare Menard PMT and PLT E-moduli

Engineers may now be bewildered by the various values of E-moduli they can get on the same soil if they are not aware of the variability of such a modulus with the strain level that the soil sustains. Today using simple softwares as Plaxis 7 may help a lot to understand the degradation of the E value when the strain level increase. In this paper we compare the strain levels of the soil for the pressuremeter tests, the plate loading test and the tri-axial test. Using a non linear elastic plastic constitutive law (usually known as exhibiting isotropic strain hardening) we were able to find a good agreement between the various E-moduli obtained in these different tests.