A Non-local hypoplastic constitutive law to describe shear localisation in granular bodies

The paper presents a FE-analysis of shear localisation in granular bodies by a finite element method based on a hypoplastic constitutive law. The law can reproduce essential features of granular bodies depending on the void ratio, pressure level and deformation direction. To realistically simulate the formation of a spontaneous shear zone inside cohesionless sand during plane strain compression, a hypoplastic constitutive law was extended by non-local terms. The effects of initial void ratio, pressure level and a characteristic length on the thickness of an interior shear zone were shown. The numerical results were compared with corresponding laboratory tests