PLANE-STRAIN DEFORMATION ANALYSIS OF SOIL

A major problem in soil mechanics is the prediction of stresses and displacements under loads applied to soil masses. Such predictions have usually been made from solutions to classical problems in the theory of linear elasticity even though neither the boundary conditions or the material properties agree with the theory. The applicability of the theory of plasticity to soil mechanics is examined. Four different yield criteria are proposed: Tresca's, Hencky's and von Mises', Drucker and Prager's generalization of the Mohr-Coulomb law, and a strain-hardening model which allows plastic compression. The large volume changes predicted by the Drucker-Prager criterion are described, and the development of more reasonable strain-hardening models by Roscoe and his associates is summarized. The strain-hardening model use