A procedure of strain-softening model for elasto-plastic analysis of a circular opening considering elasto-plastic coupling

• A procedure of strain-softening model for the elasto-plastic analysis is proposed.
• The proposed procedure has two advantages over that of Lee et al.
• The influence of evolution for E and v on radial displacement is investigated.
• The influence of evolution for E and v on hoop stress is investigated.
• The influence of evolution for E and v on GRC and plastic radius is investigated.

A simple numerical procedure of strain-softening model for the elasto-plastic analysis of a circular opening is presented by modifying the procedure proposed by Lee and Pietruszczak (2008). The proposed procedure has two advantages over that of Lee and Pietruszczak (2008). One is that the elasto-plastic coupling can be considered, the other is that the equilibrium equation and compatibility equation need not be expressed with respect to the normalized radius. Through MATLAB programming, the accuracy and validity of the proposed procedure are demonstrated through some examples. The influence of elastic modulus and Poisson’s ratio evolution on the distribution of radial displacement and hoop stress, ground response curve (GRC) and plastic radius was investigated, and the results show that, with the decrease of elastic modulus evolutional ratio, the radial displacement, hoop stress and plastic radius all increase. With the increase of Poisson’s ratio evolutional ratio, the radial displacement, hoop stress and plastic radius all decrease. As for influence extent, the evolution of elastic modulus has great influence on the radial displacement; and the evolution of Poisson’s ratio has smaller influence on the radial displacement, both of them have very slight influence on the hoop stress near the excavation face but greater on the hoop stress near the interface of elastic and plastic region. And both of them have very slight influence on the plastic radius.