A two-phase model and related numerical tool for the design of soil structures reinforced by stiff linear inclusions

Elastoplastic multiphase model for simulating the response of piled raft foundations subject to combined loadings

“…The above results obtained in the context of elastoplasticity are fully consistent with those recently presented in the framework of a linear elastic behaviour [15]. They confirm that the shear and bending components in the reinforcements have a negligible influence on the response of a vertically loaded piled raft foundation, whereas they play a crucial role in the behaviour of …”

“…This minimum principle is a direct extension of that previously established in the case of the linear elasticity of a two-phase system [15]. Based upon such a minimum principle, the twophase model has been implemented numerically in the context of a finite element method applied to plane strain problems.…”

“…A first insight into the engineering application of the two-phase model, which has been previously presented and will be treated later on, is given by the simplified example of a shearloaded reinforced layer of soil, sketched in Figure 4, which has already been treated analytically in the context of a linear elastic behaviour [11,12,15], and will now be investigated into the elastoplastic range up to failure. A soil layer of uniform depth 2L and infinite horizontal extension is reinforced by an array of evenly spaced inclusions.…”

“…A more detailed presentation of the two-phase model applied to reinforced soils, accounting for shear and flexural behaviour of the reinforcing inclusions, may be found in Reference [11] and more recently in Reference [15], in the framework of a linear constitutive law for both constituents. Following a brief recall of the general governing equations of this model, its extension to elastoplasticity is then developed.…”

“…elastoplastic computer code aimed at simulating the behaviour of soil structures reinforced by stiff or rigid linear inclusions, such as piled raft foundations. It represents the continuation of a previous paper [15] where such a development had been carried out in the context of linear elasticity. Following a brief introductory statement concerning the problem of a piled raft foundation under combined loading (Section 2), the main characteristics of the multiphase model are outlined in Section 3, in the particular case of a soil reinforced by one single array of inclusions placed along the same direction ('two-phase model').…”