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The effect of consolidation path on undrained behaviour of sand

– a DEM approach

Conference Paper · January 2015

DOI: 10.1201/b17435-27

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 Computer Methods and Recent Advances in Geomechanics – Oka, Murakami, Uzuoka & Kimoto (Eds.)
© 2015 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-1-138-00148-0

The effect of consolidation path on undrained behaviour

of sand – a DEM approach

H.B.K. Nguyen, M.M. Rahman & D.A. Cameron

University of South Australia, Mawson Lakes, SA, Australia

A.B. Fourie
University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA, Australia

ABSTRACT: Simulations of the undrained triaxial behaviour of sand using 3D DEM are described. Three types
of undrained behaviour: flow, limited flow and non-flow were observed in DEM simulations, as is commonly
observed in most laboratory studies. Three consolidation paths: isotropic, anisotropic K = σ3
/σ1
= 0.50 and K0
were assigned to observed their effect on undrained behaviour. The stress ratio, K = σ3
/σ1
during K0 consolidation
varied significantly with applied σ1
which is not in line with the widely used Jaky equation. However, consolidation
paths did not show a significant effect on undrained stress-strain and steady state behaviour. A unique steady
state line was achieved irrespective of the consolidation history prior to undrained shearing.

1 INTRODUCTION

Three types of response to undrained triaxial com-

pression have been observed for sand: flow, non-flow,
and limited-flow, as illustrated in Fig. 1. For flow
behaviour, the deviator stress (q) after attaining an
initial peak, strain softens with shearing until a mini-
mum value is attained at the steady state (SS) value;
where q is (σ1
− σ3
), σ1
and σ3
are major and minor
principal effective stresses respectively. When the SS Figure 1. Types of undrained behaviour.
strength is zero, it is referred to as ‘complete lique-
faction’ (Yamamuro & Lade 1997). For limited-flow
behaviour, the deviator stress, after attaining the initial
of systematic studies are available for these cases
peak, also strain softens with shearing but to a transient
(Fourie & Tshabalala 2005, Chu & Gan 2004). The
minimum value referred to as the quasi-steady state
effect of consolidation history on undrained char-
(QSS). Further shearing beyond QSS yields a grad-
acteristics and SS has not been evaluated in detail,
ual strain hardening to the SS. The peak stress ratio
so the findings for isotropically-consolidated soils
in q − p
space, where strain softening is triggered is
cannot be extrapolated to other cases with confi-
called the instability stress ratio, ηIS (Mizanur & Lo
dence. The micromechanics, such as particle contact
2012, Yang 2002); where p
is (σ1
+ 2σ3
)/3. In case of
number (coordination number, CN ) of granular mate-
non-flow behaviour, strain hardening occurs through-
rial, which is expected to play a significant role in
out shearing until the SS is reached. The line joining
undrained behaviour, was not the focus of experi-
SS data points in e-log (p
) space is called the steady
mental studies. Thus, this study used the 3D discrete
state line, SSL; where e is void ratio. The SSL is the
element method to evaluate the effect of consolidation
anchor concept in critical state soil mechanics (CSSM)
history on undrained behaviour of sand.
framework for analyzing sand behaviour. The above
three types of behaviour for isotropically-consolidated
sands has been extensively investigated under CSSM,
(Ishihara 1993, Been & Jefferies 1985, Rahman & Lo 2 DISCRETE ELEMENT METHOD, DEM
2014, Baki et al. 2014).
However, natural sands in level ground may not be Experimental studies in the laboratory is often an
isotropically consolidated and may rather have com- expensive and time consuming process and also
plicated consolidation history, most likely K0 (zero encounters technical limitations such as achieving
lateral strain) consolidation. Only a limited number the desired stress or strain control mode and insight

175
into inter-particle reaction/micromechanics. Numeri-
cal techniques such as the Discrete Element Method,
DEM, overcome some of these technical limitations,
particularly the insights provided by micromechanics.
DEM was first proposed by Cundall & Strack (1979)
for rock mechanics and since then has gained sig-
nificant attention from researchers. Recently, many
studies also used DEM for studying SS behaviour
of granular materials. Sitharam & Vinod (2009) used
an assembly of isotropically consolidated 1000 spher-
ical particles and found a unique SSL for drained
and undrained simulations. Gu et al. (2014) also used
isotropically consolidated spherical particles and also
found a unique SSL. They also found that SSL is
related to coordination number, CN. However, the
above studies have not evaluated the effect of consol-
idation history. Despite sand particles being angular,
most of the 3D DEM studies used spherical shapes as
they are easy to generate and shorten the simulation
time. This study used 3D ellipsoid particles to cap-
ture the effect of orientation and angularity of natural
sands.

3 TEST PREPARATION

In this study, OVAL, an open source software devel-

oped by Kuhn (2006) was used for DEM simulation.
The details of particle, specimen preparation and the
simulation program are given below.

3.1 Sample preparation

A 2D projection of an ellipsoid particle as used in
this study is shown in Fig. 2a. The shape of the ellip-
soid was controlled by varying the height/width ratio
from 0.65 to 0.99. The distribution of particle shapes
is shown alongside the particle diagram in Fig. 2a.
The orientations of the particle, θ1 and θ2 are defined
by the angle between the major axis of ellipsoid and
horizontal and vertical planes respectively. Orienta-
tions were randomly normally distributed over the
space. A standard specimen was achieved with 1800
particles with a void ratio of e = 0.4137 at mean con-
fining stress, p
of 20 kPa. The specimen size was
9.33 × 9.33 × 9.33 mm3 as shown in Fig. 2b.
To avoid the lengthy process of specimen prepara-
tion for different densities, randomly selected particles
from the standard specimen were deleted such that
their grain size distribution and orientation of parti-
cles remain similar among different specimens. The
grain size distribution curves of these specimens were
same as presented in Fig. 3a. The orientations of the
particles for these specimens exhibited similar distri-
bution as shown in Fig. 3b. The particles were assigned
a normal contact stiffness of 108 N/m, ratio of tan-
gential/normal contact stiffness of 1.0, coefficient of
friction at particle contacts of 0.50 and zero mass den-
sity. The assembly was then compressed to desired
confining stresses or vertical stresses following an
assigned consolidation path using a rate of 10−5 /time
step to ensure static equilibrium.
Figure 2. Ellipsoid particle: a) Projection of an ellipsoid
particle in 2-dimensional plane, b) Cubical specimen before
consolidation.
3.2 Simulation program
Three series of undrained tests were conducted
based on their consolidation paths – a) isotropic
(K = σ3
/σ1
= 1), b) anisotropic when K = σ3
/σ1
= 0.50
and c) anisotropic K0 (zero lateral strain). These tests
cover a range of p
from 20 kPa to 600 kPa and void
ratio, e0 from 0.4103 to 0.7290, after consolidation.
Details of the testing program are given in Table. 1.
4 UNDRAINED BEHAVIOUR
All three types of undrained behaviour were observed
under triaxial conditions during DEM simulation as
shown in Fig. 4a&b.These simulations were conducted
at three different isotropic consolidation stresses and
thus normalized with mean effective stresses, p
0 for
comparison. ISO 7 reached an initial peak deviatoric
stress and then showed strain softening behaviour to
reach SS at p
= 1 kPa approximately. This behaviour is
complete liquefaction. ISO 10 showed an initial peak

176
 Table 1. Details of triaxial simulation.

Test name ei K e0 p
0 (kPa)

ISO1 0.5379 1 0.5377 50

ISO2 0.4137 1 0.4124 50
ISO3 0.6833 1 0.6731 50
ISO4 0.5843 1 0.5820 50
ISO5 0.6344 1 0.5820 50
ISO6 0.6565 1 0.6525 50
ISO7 0.6833 1 0.6600 100
ISO8 0.4137 1 0.4103 100
ISO9 0.6833 1 0.6247 300
ISO10 0.7106 1 0.6093 600
ISO11 0.6833 1 0.6330 216
ISO12 0.7106 1 0.6760 50
ISO13 0.7511 1 0.6781 50
ISO14 0.7511 1 0.6700 100
ISO15 0.7511 1 0.7290 19
ISO16 0.7511 1 0.7045 28
ISO17 0.7511 1 0.6870 36
AC1 0.5397 0.5 0.5377 50
AC4 0.6833 0.5 0.6399 216
AC5 0.6833 0.5 0.655 100
AC7 0.7106 0.5 0.6095 600
K01 0.7106 K0 0.6094 535
Figure 3. a) Grain size distribution curves, b) orientation of K02 0.4137 K0 0.3949 459
particles before consolidation at different ei . K03 0.5397 K0 0.5110 481
K04 0.6344 K0 0.5955 459
deviatoric stress and then strain softened to QSS. After
QSS, it exhibited strain hardening behaviour and even- ei = void ratio before consolidation; K = σ3
/σ1
; e0 = void
ratio after consolidation or start of undrained shearing; and
tually reached SS. This is limited flow behaviour. It is p
0 = mean effective confining stress after consolidation.
interesting to note that the peak deviatoric stress was
achieved above the failure line i.e. instability stress
ratio, ηIS was higher than the stress ratio at SS. This
behaviour was not observed for a large number of The complete liquefaction behaviour for ISO 7 is
triaxial tests for Sydney sand (Rahman et al. 2008), consistent with Gong’s prediction.
Glacial sand (Rabbi et al. 2014) etc. However, some
tests for FBM sand with fines showed this type of
behaviour (Rees 2010). ISO 5 exhibited strain hard- 5 EFFECT OF CONSOLIDATION
ening behaviour until it reached the SS i.e. non-flow
behaviour. The result of ISO 5 is truncated for clar- To observe the effect of consolidation, a specimen with
ity of the figure. Thus, all three types of undrained a void ratio before consolidation of ei = 0.7106 was
behaviour were observed in DEM simulation with consolidated through three different paths as shown
ellipsoid particles. in Fig. 6. The consolidation started from a standard
Coordination Number, CN is used to illustrate the isotropic confining stress of 12 kPa. The specimen ISO
stability or quality of a specimen and defined in Kuhn 10 was consolidated through K = σ3
/σ1
= 1 to reach a
(2006) as p
0 of 600 kPa. Although AC 7 was started from the
same isotropic stress condition, it followed a drained
path to reach K = 0.50 and then continued through
K = 0.50 path to a σ1
of 900 kPa i.e. a p
0 of 600 kPa.
However, K0 1 had the same isotropic starting condi-
where CN = coordination number; C = total number tion, though a K0 path (zero lateral strain) was assigned
of contacts; and N = number of particles in the speci- from the start. K0 1 quickly reached K0 stress condi-
men. The CN for these three specimens are presented tion (faster than AC 7) and continued to σ1
of 900 kPa,
in Fig. 5. ISO 5 which exhibited non-flow behaviour giving a p
0 of 535 kPa. The stress ratio, K = σ3
/σ1

started with a high CN of 6.5 and quickly reached a varied significantly with σ1
. Jaky’s formulation (Jaky
constant value of 4.75 and remained almost the same 1944) for K0 equal to (1-sinφ
) for normally consol-
until it reached the SS. ISO 7 which exhibited flow idated sand gives a constant stress ratio irrespective
behaviour started with a relatively low CN value of 5.2. of σ1
and is not in line with this finding. Although
CN reduced with axial strain and remained constant this study is limited, it has shown that σ1
may be an
until it reached the SS. According to Gong (2008), a influencing factor for K0 as its dependency on density
CN of 4 from Equation 1 defines a phase transition has been observed by Ishihara (1993). It is noted that
between solid to liquid state of granular materials. void ratio after consolidation, e0 increased slightly for

177

Figure 4. Undrained behaviour of specimens after isotropic
consolidation: a) Effective stress path; and b) Stress-strain
relationship.
Figure 5. Evolution of CN with axial strain for undrained
tests.
anisotropically consolidated specimens. This may be
due to drained shearing during anisotropic consolida-
tion. However, the changes in void ratio among these
simulations were so close that they can be considered
equivalent.
178
Figure 6. Consolidation paths.
Figure 7. Effect of consolidation on stress-strain behaviour.
The stress-strain behaviours of the above simula-
tions for undrained condition are plotted in Fig. 7. It
may be noted that AC 7 and ISO 10 had almost the
same void ratio and reached SS at the same value of q,
although their strain levels corresponding to SS were
different with AC 7 reaching SS at a strain level smaller
than that for ISO 10 during undrained shearing. How-
ever, axial strain for AC 7 (anisotropic) was higher
than ISO 10 during anisotropic consolidation. These
simulations showed limited flow behaviour.
6 STEADY STATE BEHAVIOUR
Most of the specimens were sheared to large strain
so that they reached SS as defined by dp
= 0, dq = 0
and du = 0. However, due to the angularity of ellipsoid
particles (compared to spherical particles) the stress-
strain path exhibited higher scatter than stress-strain
paths for spherical particles. However, most of the
specimens showed a clear SS; in few cases the SS was
clarified by the extrapolation method, as detailed in
Rahman and Lo (2014). The rate of change of excess
pore pressure, δ(u)/δε1 , was plotted against the stress
Figure 8. Determination of SS.
Figure 9. Steady state line, SSL.
ratio (η), where u is the pore water pressure devel-
opment. u was simulated by taking the difference
of mean stresses between undrained (effective) and
drained (total) stress path. The value of ηSS = M can be
estimated by extrapolating δ(u)/δε1 to zero. Then, p

at the SS was estimated from the η − p
plot, by extrap-
olating η to M . Such an extrapolation approach was
also employed in other studies presented in the litera-
ture (Murthy et al. 2007, Carrera et al. 2011). Although
the stress-strain path of ISO 10 showed an approximate
SS (not as clear as AC 7), the SS was verified with
the above approach. Fig. 8 shows that δ(u)/δε1 = 0
achieved at η = M = 0.85. Thus, the corresponding p

from η − p
plot was taken as p
for SS.
All the SS data points are presented in Fig. 9. The
best fit curve of the SS points can be presented by a
power function as below-
where ess is void ratio at SS; p
ss is effective confin-
ing pressure at SS; and pa is atmospheric pressure
equal to 100 kPa. A scatter was observed at very low
p
. This is because, the simulations started above the
179
Figure 10. Relation of CN and p
at SS.
SSL and moved leftward, due to pore water pressure
generation, to meet the SSL. Any initial state with e0 of
0.66 or above showed complete liquefaction and con-
tributed to the scatter. Fig. 9 also shows the SS data
points for different consolidation histories. All the data
points irrespective of consolidation history, showed a
unique SSL.
The CN at SS for different mean effective stress at
SS showed a good correlation (refer Fig. 10). The best
fit equation can be presented by the following power
equation-
During the shearing phase, a loose specimen under-
goes strain softening and reaches its SS around 1 kPa
approximately. CN s of these data points were roughly
around 4 (Fig. 10) which is a transition value between
solid and liquid state from a micromechanics point of
view, which confirms Gong’s suggestion (Gong 2008).
7 CONCLUSIONS
Three series of undrained triaxial compression tests
were simulated in 3D DEM for an assembly of
ellipsoid particles. The first series was isotropically
consolidated; the second series was anisotropically
(K = σ3
/σ1
= 0.50) and third series was K0 consoli-
dated before undrained shearing. The major outcomes
of this study were
• Three types of undrained behaviour (flow, limited
flow and non-flow) were observed during DEM
simulations.
• Despite different consolidation histories, a stan-
dard specimen achieved almost similar void ratios
after consolidation and their stress-strain paths were
also similar. However, anisotropically-consolidated
specimens showed higher axial strain during con-
solidation but reached SS at lower strains during
undrained shearing than isotropically-consolidated
specimens.
• The stress ratio (K = σ3
/σ1
) during K0 consolidation
varied with σ1
. This indicates the limitation of the
widely used Jaky equation which predicts a constant
stress ratio irrespective of σ1
and density.
• A unique SSL was achieved for all specimens
irrespective of the consolidation history.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
We acknowledge the use of open source DEM
software, OVAL (http://faculty.up.edu/kuhn/oval/oval
.html) and the personal communication with its devel-
oper Prof. Matthew R. Kuhn, University of Portland,
USA. The first author of the paper is supported by
UPS scholarship in the School of Natural and Built
Environments, University of South Australia.
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