Modeling failure in cross-anisotropic frictional materials

Three-dimensional test results for frictional materials such as soils, concrete, and rock show that the shapes of their failure surfaces are influenced by the intermediate principal stress, shear banding, and cross-anisotropy (transverse isotropy). A general 3D failure criterion for cross-anisotropic soils for both non-rotating and rotating stresses is presented and compared with experimental results for sand, clay, and sea ice. The formulation relates the loading direction to the principal directions of the cross-anisotropic microstructure of the material. The criterion is based on a function of stress, previously used as the 3D failure criterion for isotropic frictional materials, which is set equal to a scalar that varies over a sphere. The formulation is specialized for true triaxial tests and torsion shear tests and determination of material parameters is demonstrated. The failure criterion is compared with experimental results from the literature to show that it is able to capture the conditions obtained in three-dimensional experiments without and with stress rotations. The limitations of the criterion are demonstrated by its failure to capture the behavior of some cross-anisotropic materials with particular micro-structures, and the reasons for the shortcomings are discussed.