Elasto-plastic long-term behavior of granular soils: Modelling and experimental validation

Abstract Repeated small amplitude dynamic loading of the soil in the vicinity of buildings, as arising from traffic or construction activities, may cause differential foundation settlements and structural damage. In this paper, an accumulation model for settlements due to vibrations at small strain levels in granular non-cohesive soils is proposed. It is assumed that the dynamic part of the stresses is small with respect to the static part. As plastic deformation in the soil is only observed after a considerable amount of dynamic loading cycles, only the accumulation of the average plastic deformation is considered. The model accounts for the dependency of the deformation on the stress state, the void ratio, and the dynamic loading amplitude. The model is calibrated for homogeneous fine grained sands with the aid of cyclic triaxial test results.