Adynamicconstitutivelawforsoils.docVIP

A dynamic constitutive law for soils Dinu BRATOSIN Institute of Solid Mechanics - Romanian Academy, Calea Victoriei 125, 71102 Bucharest, Romania e-mail: bratosin@acad.ro Considering soils as non-linear viscoelastic materials subjected to harmonic strain histories this paper presents a dynamic model based on modulus and damping functions in terms of both strain and frequency. Using experimental observations, this general model is then adapted for soils dynamic problem. The numerical calibration of the constitutive dynamic functions is ensure by resonant column data and this apparatus is used and for checked the model validity. Key words: Soil mechanics, soil dynamics, earthquake engineering, non-linear analysis 1. Introduction The vibratory ground motions caused by earthquakes, and mainly due to the upward propagation of shear waves from underlying rock formations, consist in cycling loads-unloads-reloads sequences. For this reason, the cyclic stress-strain behaviour of soils appears to be of primary importance for a reliable prediction of the seismic response. A large volume of investigation concerning dynamic stress-strain characteristics of soils in cyclic conditions has been performed so far [3, 5, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 17, 20]. These studies show that there are many factors influencing the dynamic stress-strain response. Among these the main dynamic stress-strain characteristics, definitory for the choice of a dynamic constitutive equation, seem to be the strain dependency and disipative capacity. As in the previous statically “variable moduli” models [1, 12, 13, 19] which include the strain dependency by replacing the elastic moduli by strain functions, Hardin and Drnevich [12], Seed and Idris [20] and many other [11, 12, 13, 20] presented empirical relationships for the strain dependency of the shear modulus and damping ratio in dynamic conditions. __________________________ Recommended by Radu P.VOINEA Member of the Romanian Academy The dissipative ca