CONSTITUTIVE MODELS FOR SUBSOIL IN THE CONTEXT OF STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS IN CONSTRUCTION ENGINEERING

Parameters of constitutive models are obtained generally comparing the results of forward numerical simulations to measurement data. Mostly the parameter values are varied by trial-and-error in order to reach an improved fit and obtain plausible results. However, the description of complex soil behavior requires advanced constitutive models where the rising complexity of these models mainly increases the number of unknown constitutive parameters. Thus an efficient identification "by hand" becomes quite difficult for most practical geotechnical problems. The main focus of this article is on finding a vector of parameters in a given search space which minimizes discrepancy between measurements and the associated numerical result. Classically, the parameter values are estimated from laboratory tests on small samples (triaxial tests or oedometer tests). For this purpose an automatic population-based approach is present to determine the material parameters for reconstituted and natural Bothkennar Clay. After the identification a statistical assessment is carried out of numerical results to evaluate different constitutive models. On the other side a geotechnical problem, stone columns under an embankment, is treated in a well instrumented field trial in Klagenfurt, Austria. For the identification purpose there are measurements from multilevel-piezometers, multilevel-extensometers and horizontal inclinometer. Based on the simulation of the stone columns in a FE-Model the identification of the constitutive parameters is similar to the experimental tests by minimizing the absolute error between measurement and numerical curves