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Guo, Y. (author), Golchin, A. (author), Hicks, M.A. (author), Liu, Songyu (author), Zhang, Guozhu (author), Vardon, P.J. (author)The effect of temperature on the monotonic and cyclic shearing response of a soil–structure interface is of critical importance for the application of thermal-active geo-structures. To investigate this, soils and soil–concrete interfaces were comprehensively tested with a temperature-controlled direct shear device under both fixed...journal article 2023
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Bayraktaroglu, H. (author), Hicks, M.A. (author), Korff, M. (author), Galavi, Vahid (author)Experimental studies show that initial fabric and its evolution under different stress paths highly influence soil behaviour. Even though different sample preparation methods create different inherent anisotropies and cause different material responses, the same initial fabric structure under different stress paths also results in different...journal article 2023
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Golchin, A. (author), Guo, Y. (author), Vardon, P.J. (author), Liu, S. (author), Zhang, G. (author), Hicks, M.A. (author)The coupling effect of initial shear stress and thermal cycles on the thermomechanical behaviour of clay concrete and sand-concrete interfaces has been studied. A set of drained monotonic direct shear tests was conducted at the soil-concrete interface level. Samples were initially sheared to half of the material's shear strength and then they...journal article 2023
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Wang, Bin (author), Wang, Di (author), Hicks, M.A. (author), Feng, Xia Ting (author)Retrogressive failures occur in slopes consisting of sensitive materials such as snow or quick clay. They can be triggered by a small disturbance at the slope toe, but can cause propagated failure spreading miles away. Understanding the physical mechanism and predicting the retrogressive failure process are particularly important. Previous...journal article 2023
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Li, Z. (author), Liu, Haoyuan (author), Hicks, M.A. (author), Pisano, F. (author)Offshore monopile foundations are exposed to misaligned wind and wave loadings, which are respectively dominated by (nearly) static and cyclic load components. While the response of these systems to unidirectional cyclic loading has been extensively investigated, only a few studies have been devoted to the realistic case of misaligned static...journal article 2023
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Do, Phuong Chinh (author), Vardon, P.J. (author), Gonzalez Acosta, J.L. (author), Hicks, M.A. (author)The material point method (MPM) is gaining an increasing amount of attention due to its capacity to solve geotechnical problems involving large deformations. Large deformations in geotechnics usually involve the failure process and therefore dynamic analyses are often carried out. However, simulating the (infinite) continuous domain using...conference paper 2023
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Gonzalez Acosta, J.L. (author), van den Eijnden, A.P. (author), Hicks, M.A. (author)Soil liquefaction is investigated considering a saturated soil deposit and by implementing standard techniques of random field theory to distribute initial void ratio values and assess liquefaction risk. The soil domain is represented in a 2-dimensional (2D) random finite element model for the dynamic analysis of coupled behavior. Multiple...conference paper 2023
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Bayraktaroglu, H. (author), Hicks, M.A. (author), Korff, M. (author)In this paper, a state-dependent semi-micromechanical framework for anisotropic sands is proposed. A simple constitutive model based on critical state theory and bounding surface (BS) plasticity is used to describe idealized micro-level soil behaviour, and a slip theory based multilaminate framework employed to create a link between the micro...conference paper 2023
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Varkey, D. (author), Hicks, M.A. (author), van den Eijnden, A.P. (author)The stability of six regional dyke cross-sections in the Netherlands was re-assessed using the random finite element method (RFEM), which explicitly accounts for the spatial variability of strength parameters. The RFEM assessments of the cross-sections were shown to result in significantly narrower response distributions than those obtained...conference paper 2023
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Sorgatz, Julia (author), van den Eijnden, A.P. (author), Montenegro, Héctor (author), Hicks, M.A. (author)To protect embankments along German inland waterways against local slope sliding failure caused by ship-induced water level drawdown, they are mainly secured by bank revetments. Often, large embankment sections are designed on the basis of a limited number of field and laboratory tests. Thus, uncertainties arise with regard to the mechanical and...journal article 2023
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Hicks, M.A. (author)The spatial variability of soil properties influences material behaviour and the performance of geotechnical structures. It also leads to uncertainty in design, because one can never be certain about what the ground conditions are at every location across a site. This article introduces the concept and implications of spatial variability, and...conference paper 2022
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Zheng, X. (author), Pisano, F. (author), Vardon, P.J. (author), Hicks, M.A. (author)The Material Point Method (MPM) has been gaining increasing popularity as an appropriate approach to the solution of coupled hydro-mechanical problems involving large deformations. This study extends the implicit GIMP-patch method for coupled poroelastic problems recently proposed by Zheng et al. (2021b) to tackle large-deformation problems...journal article 2022
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Golchin, A. (author), Vardon, P.J. (author), Hicks, M.A. (author)The formulation of a new thermo-mechanical constitutive model consistent with the principles of thermodynamics is presented. The model is capable of predicting the rate-independent thermo-mechanical behavior of fine-grained soils. The constitutive equations are derived by defining only a Gibbs-type free energy and a dissipation potential, in...journal article 2022
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Varkey, D. (author), Hicks, M.A. (author), Vardon, P.J. (author)This paper investigates the influence of three forms of uncertainty on the probabilistic stability of an idealised 3D embankment slope. These are: 1D spatial variability in the external geometry of the slope along its length, 2D spatial variability in the depth of the boundary between the embankment material and the foundation layer, and 3D...journal article 2022
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Golchin, A. (author), Vardon, P.J. (author), Hicks, M.A. (author)The formulation of a two surface/bubble thermo-mechanical constitutive model consistent with the principles of thermodynamics is presented. This allows plastic deformations inside the outer yield surface, resulting in a smooth stress–strain prediction and progressive cyclic deformations. This is achieved by the translation of the inner yield...journal article 2022
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Li, Yajun (author), Li, Jianguang (author), Xu, Nengxiong (author), Fenton, Gordon A. (author), Vardon, P.J. (author), Hicks, M.A. (author)Correlation length or scale of fluctuation (SOF) is often used as a primary parameter in defining the spatial correlation characteristics of varying soil properties. However, geotechnical site investigations are rather limited so that proper determination of correlation length is not always possible. The concept of a worst-case correlation...journal article 2022
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Zheng, X. (author), Pisano, F. (author), Vardon, P.J. (author), Hicks, M.A. (author)This study presents the formulation and implementation of a fully implicit stabilised Material Point Method (MPM) for dynamic problems in two-phase porous media. In particular, the proposed method is built on a three-field formulation of the governing conservation laws, which uses solid displacement, pore pressure and fluid displacement as...journal article 2022
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Study of landslides and soil-structure interaction problems using the implicit material point methodGonzalez Acosta, J.L. (author), Vardon, P.J. (author), Hicks, M.A. (author)Mesh based methods such as the finite element method (FEM) are the most usually used techniques for analysing soil-structure interaction problems in geotechnical engineering. Nevertheless, standard FEM is unable to simulate large deformations and contact, hindering the realistic simulation of rotational, sliding, pull-out and overturning...journal article 2021
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van den Eijnden, A.P. (author), Schweckendiek, T. (author), Hicks, M.A. (author)A kriging-based metamodelling approach for analysing the structural reliability of a sheetpile wall in a dyke is formulated. This specific problem is characterised by high target reliabilities ((Formula presented.)) in combination with a noisy and incomplete numerical model response. Starting from the original formulation of active learning...journal article 2021
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Golchin, A. (author), Vardon, P.J. (author), Coombs, William M. (author), Hicks, M.A. (author)This paper presents a new Modified Cam Clay (MCC) type yield function, that is designed for robust and efficient use with implicit stress integration algorithms. The proposed yield function attains non-elliptical (e.g. tear and bullet) shapes, as well as the typical elliptical shape of the MCC model. Like that of MCC, and unlike most other...journal article 2021