Hypoplastic model for crushable sand

Abstract

A constitutive model for granular materials which considers grain crushing effects is developed in the framework of hypoplasticity. As grain crushing occurs the behaviour of granular material can usually be significantly affected. Several empirical relations between peak strength, uniformity coefficient and stiffness of sand depending on stress level or amount of grain crushing have been derived in the past. In this paper, such relations are employed to improve a basic hypoplastic constitutive model based on the changes of stress level or grain size distribution. In the proposed modified hypoplastic model only two additional physical parameters, namely uniformity coefficient and mean grain size are incorporated. The validation of the modified model for three different sands under triaxial test response with cell pressures up to 30 MPa is presented and shows a significantly better correspondence with regard to the original basic hypoplastic model.