Constitutive modeling of the destructuration and anisotropy of natural soft clay

The mechanical behavior of natural clays is affected by their inherent anisotropy and metastable soil structure. A simple hierarchical model that considers initial anisotropy and destructuration was formulated within the framework of critical state soil mechanics. In the proposed model, stress sensitivity and a destructuration index were introduced to account for the degree of bonding and the rate of destructuration, respectively. An inclined yield surface was used to incorporate the effect of the initial anisotropy. The proposed model can be degenerated to the Modified Cam Clay model by setting the initial stress sensitivity equal to unity and using a horizontal yield surface. Reasonable agreement between the model simulations and the experimental results on a variety of stress paths demonstrated that the proposed model can capture well the deformation behavior of natural clay and reconstituted soil. The model was implemented into the finite element program for the numerical analysis of an embankment on soft clay improved with prefabricated vertical drains. The numerical predictions were compared with the field-measured data in terms of embankment settlement. Additionally, the numerical simulations were analyzed in terms of horizontal displacements, excess pore water pressure, mean effective stress and volumetric strain. All of the simulations and comparisons indicate the importance of considering the effects of plastic anisotropy, interparticle bonding and destructuration caused by loading beyond yield stress and field disturbance in analyzing the behavior of an embankment on natural soft clay.