Both sand and polymer geogrid reinforcement are known to exhibit more-orlesscomplicated stress-strain-time or load-strain-time behavior includinginstantaneous non-linearity and viscous effects. Creep is one of the most importanttime-dependent behaviors of material, which is an inherent response of the viscousproperty of material. Due to interactions between the viscous sand and reinforcement,the creep characteristics of geogrid-reinforced sand could be very complicated. Anonlinear finite element method (FEM) analysis technique incorporating the unifiedthree-component elasto-viscoplastic constitutive model for both sand and geogrid wasdeveloped. The FEM can simulate the whole process including the constant strain rateloadings and the creep loading stages. In addition, the development of strain fieldsduring the creep loading can also be reproduced by the FEM simulation. Bycomparing the simulated results with the experimental results, it was shown that theproposed elasto-viscoplastic FEM could well simulate the creep characteristics ofgeogrid-reinforced sand, especially for the high stiffness following a creep loadingstage.
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