A Fabric-Related Constitutive Model for Granular Materials

Abstract

A new anisotropic constitutive model for granular materials is developed. This model exhibits the noncoaxiality of the principal axes of stress and strain rate as a natural consequence of a kinematic hypothesis. A fabric reconstruction parameter ℬ plays an important role in this model. The pressure sensitivity parameter, μ, and two different hardening parameters often employed in modeling granular materials, come out to be expressible in terms of this fabric reconstruction factor. The stress criterion in this model is not friction based, and therefore the rolling of granules can be taken into account through the fabric paramater. Numerical results are presented on the basis of a phenomenological trial function for ℬ.