An extended graphical solution for undrained cylindrical cavity expansion in K0-consolidated Mohr–Coulomb soil

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

8-10-2024

Abstract

This paper develops a general and complete solution for the undrained cylindrical cavity expansion problem in nonassociated Mohr-Coulomb soil under nonhydrostatic initial stress field (i.e., arbitrary (Formula presented.) values of the earth pressure coefficient), by expanding a unique and efficient graphical solution procedure recently proposed by Chen and Wang in 2022 for the special in situ stress case with (Formula presented.). It is interesting to find that the cavity expansion deviatoric stress path is always composed of a series of piecewise straight lines, for all different case scenarios of K0 being involved. When the cavity is sufficiently expanded, the stress path will eventually end, exclusively, in a major sextant with Lode angle θ in between (Formula presented.) and (Formula presented.) or on the specific line of (Formula presented.). The salient advantage/feature of the present general graphical approach lies in that it can deduce the cavity expansion responses in full closed form, nevertheless being free of the limitation of the intermediacy assumption for the vertical stress and of the difficulty existing in the traditional zoning method that involves cumbersome, sequential determination of distinct Mohr–Coulomb plastic regions. Some typical results for the desired cavity expansion curves and the limit cavity pressure are presented, to investigate the impacts of soil plasticity parameters and the earth pressure coefficient on the cavity responses. The proposed graphical method/solution will be of great value for the interpretation of pressuremeter tests in cohesive-frictional soils.

Publication Source (Journal or Book title)

International Journal for Numerical and Analytical Methods in Geomechanics

First Page

2925

Last Page

2943

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