A Strain-Rate Dependent Clay Constitutive Model with Parametric Sensitivity and Uncertainty Quantification

摘要

This paper presents a strain-rate dependent plastic constitutive model for clays. Based on the concepts of critical-state soil mechanics and bounding surface plasticity theory, the model reproduces the mechanical response of clays under triaxial and simple shear loading conditions. The model parameters are determined for Boston Blue Clay, London Clay and Kaolin Clay, and the performance of the model in simulating the mechanical response of these clays is demonstrated for low to medium strain rates. The sensitivity of each model parameter is checked by perturbing the calibrated values by ±20 %. Subsequently, a probabilistic analysis using Monte Carlo simulations is performed by treating the model parameters as random variables and the impact of the statistics of the parameters on the undrained shear strength is investigated.