New double yield surface model for coarse granular materials incorporating nonlinear unified failure criterion

A new double-yield-surface (DYS) model was developed to characterize the strength and deformation behaviors of coarse granular materials (CGMs). Two kinds of deformation mechanisms, including the shear and compressive plastic deformation, were taken into account in this model. These two deformation mechanisms were described by the shear and compressive yield functions, respectively. The Lode angle dependent formulations of proposed model were deduced by incorporating a 3D nonlinear unified failure criterion. Some comparisons were presented between the numerical predictions of proposed model and test data of true triaxial tests on the modeled rockfills. The model predictions are in good agreement with the test data and capture the strain hardening and plastic volumetric dilation of CGMs. These findings verify the reasonability of current DYS model, and indicate that this model is well suited to reproduce the stress-strain-volume change behavior of CGMs in general.