An Examination of the FLAC Software: Undrained Triaxial Test on Cam-clay

Prepared by Jack Montgomery June 8, 2010 ECI 280A Term Project Instructor: Boris Jeremi

Introduction Many problems in geotechnical engineering are too complex to be properly evaluated using analytical solutions or physical models. Complexity may be due to non-linear material properties, complex loading patterns or non-standard geometries. For these problems numerical simulations are often used to examine the forces and displacements from various types of loading. Many software packages are available for this type of simulation, but one that is commonly used in practice is FLAC. FLAC, Fast Lagrangian Analysis of Continua, is distributed by Itasca Consulting Group and has the ability to solve a wide range of geotechnical problems involving dynamic loading, multiple material models, structural elements and pore fluid. In order to better understand the inner workings of the software, the formulation will be examined, some of the methods will be discussed and finally an undrained triaxial test on a sample of Cam-clay will be simulated. FLAC: Fast Lagrangian Analysis of Continua FLAC is a commercially available, two-dimensional finite difference software program. In FLAC, the finite difference method is used, instead of the more commonly understood finite element method, to solve the differential equations associated with each problem. Each differential term is replaced with an algebraic equation called a finite difference approximation and this set of equations is solved in FLAC using an explicit integration scheme. The applied forces are then divided into a series of incremental forces, referred to as time steps. The explicit integration solves each equation of motion at each element for each time step with no iterations (FLAC 2001). After solving the equations for each element, the calculated velocities and displacements are sent to the constitutive model to calculate stresses and strains. These stresses and strains are then used to create new equations of motions. Because there is no iteration this method assumes that the changes in each element do not affect the neighboring elements within a time step. This assumption allows each element to be evaluated independently. To ensure this assumption is valid, a small enough time step must be used so that information would not passed between the elements within a time step. This method is in contrast to the implicit method which solves the equations of motion for all elements at once. This requires iteration to find the solution and may take more computational effort for each time step, but significantly larger time steps may be used compared with explicit integration scheme. Two of the most important features are the finite difference method and the explicit integration scheme. These will be explored further in the following sections. Finite Difference Method One important difference between FLAC and some of the more commonly understood finite element programs is FLAC uses the finite difference solution for solving differential

equations. The Finite Difference method is a numerical solution scheme for solving the governing equations of a continuum body (Bathe 1996). This technique was pioneered in the 1920s as a method of solving nonlinear hydrodynamic equations (for more on development see Thom and Apelt, 1961). Differential terms in the equations are replaced by algebraic equations called finite difference approximations. These approximations are defined as the difference between field variables at two discrete points in space. The finite difference method has no shape functions, as finite elements do, so a linear change is assumed between the two points (Bathe 1996). This would be equivalent to a finite element with a linear shape function. This simplification can cause numerical errors in areas of high gradients since the approximation can average out the changing variables. In these areas many elements may be required to properly capture the response. One example of this can be seen in liquefaction modeling where using only one row of elements can cause excess pore pressures to be averaged out with the layers above and below. In an extreme case this could mask the liquefaction phenomenon completely. This can be avoided by using two or more rows of elements for any material. An example will be used to illustrate how the finite difference technique can be applied to a uniaxial bar (see Figure 1). This example is worked out by Bathe (1996) for both finite difference and finite elements, but only the finite difference solution is presented here. In this case the governing equation of the bar is the equation of motion. This equation requires finding the second derivative of displacement. Consider three nodes on the bar spaced equally at a distance h and two sub-nodes located midway between each of the main nodes. The second derivative of the center node is approximated by considering the change in displacements over three nodes and two points half-way between these nodes. First, the first derivative of displacements at the two sub-nodes is found by considering the difference in displacements between the left node and the center node. This approximates the derivative as the change in displacements divided by the distance between the nodes. The second derivative at the central node is found by taking the derivative between the first derivatives at the sub-nodes divided by the distance between them. The first derivatives of the sub-nodes were found as described above in terms of displacements at all three nodes. When the equations are combined the result can be seen in Figure 1. One issue that can be immediately seen is the need for a virtual node outside the bar to properly impose boundary conditions on the bar. The finite difference method has been used for many years and has some distinct advantages and disadvantages for solving differential equations. One of the most important advantages is the simplicity of the formulations. This method can be easily coded into programs and requires little memory to perform calculations. This simplicity makes it easy to recalculate the equations of motions at each step, so more steps can be used without great penalty in the form of calculation time. This makes it an ideal method for combination with the explicit

integration scheme which requires small step sizes. There are also no shape functions in the finite difference method as there are in the finite element method. This means that variables are undefined within the elements, but values can be assumed to vary linearly between nodes. In FLAC, quadrilateral elements are specified by the user, but are subdivided into two triangular elements internally. Given the lack of shape functions, these are analogous to constant strain, triangular elements in finite elements. One distinct disadvantage of this approach is that many elements may be required to properly capture areas where variables are changing rapidly. This is especially important in problems like liquefaction. If only one row of elements is liquefiable, the excess pore pressures will be averaged out by the nodes above and below the liquefied elements. More details on the use of the finite difference method in FLAC can be found in the users manual, Theory and Background (FLAC 2001). Explicit Integration There are two main types of numerical integration used in finite element or finite difference solutions. These are the explicit and implicit methods, respectively. In numerical solutions integration of the equations is performed at both the global and constitutive levels. The global integration is concerned with the response of the entire system, while the constitutive integration is concerned with the material response. The main difference between the two methods is that the implicit method uses iterations to ensure equilibrium at each step. On the global level, iterations ensure that neighboring elements are all in equilibrium with each other and the applied loads. On the constitutive level, iterations are performed to ensure that when the material is yielding it finishes on the yield surface. These iterations are not concerned with the accuracy of the solution, but do ensure equilibrium at each step which may increase the accuracy of the solution when compared with the explicit method in which the solution may not be on the yield surface at all. The explicit method relies on small time steps to ensure any errors in equilibrium are small and can be neglected. On the global level, FLAC uses the explicit integration scheme which uses no iterations to find equilibrium among the elements. This means that changes in stresses within a single element will not affect the calculated displacements, and therefore the neighboring elements, until the next step. This assumption is valid as long as the time step is small enough to ensure that the calculation wave moves faster than the physical wave of the loading (FLAC 2002). This means if the system is being loaded by an earthquake, the time step must be small enough so the wave could not propagate through an element within the time step. Over multiple steps the loading would propagate upward just as it would physically. This time step is calculated automatically by the program to ensure stability and accuracy of the solution. For all material models included with the FLAC software explicit integration is used at the constitutive level. If a user was to define their own model they could include some sort of implicit integration. Doing this would ensure equilibrium at the expense of computational time

and memory requirements. Explicit integration ensures accuracy by using a small time step which is just as important at the constitutive level as it is at the global level. At the constitutive level, the KarushKuhnTucker conditions for constitutive models (Karush 1939, Kuhn-Tucker 1951) require that the stress state of a material be on or within the yield surface at all times. When a material attempts to cross the yield surface, plastic strains will develop and the stress state will change. In constitutive modeling, this is handled by using an elastic predictor to allow the stress state to cross the yield surface and then uses a plastic corrector to bring the material back to the yield surface (Figure 2). The implicit method would use iterations to ensure that the stress state ends on the yield surface. Explicit integration will draw a tangent line at the location where the material crossed the yield surface and will come back to that line. If the time step is small the error between the tangent plan and the yield surface will likely be small (Ortiz and Popov 1985). Errors will be most significant with irregular yield surfaces and at bifurcation points. This error is easy to examine at the element level, but can be lost in a large problem with many elements. This is one of the many reasons single element tests are important to check the accuracy and stability of the numerical solution. Numerical Simulation A single element test will be conducted on a sample of Cam-clay. The simulation will serve two purposes. First, the results will be compared to analytical solutions published by David Muir Wood (1990) to gauge the accuracy of the FLAC solution compared with what the model should be predicting. This process is called verification of the software. Verification is used to ensure that the model and software are functioning correctly numerically (Muir Wood 2004). A complimentary process to verification is validation of the model. Validation compares the model response to some actual test result or case history to see if the model is capturing the desired behavior. A simple way to think of it is verification is checking whether the model is working right, validation checks whether it is the right model. Although validation is a crucial step in any numerical simulation, it is a test of the appropriateness of the model, not of the accuracy of the software program. For this reason it will not be explored further here. More about verification and validation can be found in Oberkampf et al. (2002). The second purpose of these analyses is to gauge the effect of different size time steps. As was discussed earlier the size of the time step directly affects the accuracy and stability of an explicit integration solution. In FLAC the minimum time step size is calculated automatically to ensure numerical stability. The calculated size is based on the relative stiffness of the materials, but an easy way to adjust the equivalent time step is to adjust the rate of loading so that more load is applied during a given time step. For this report an undrained triaxial test will be simulated using material parameters from Muir Wood (1990) and the Cam-clay material model implemented in FLAC. Each component of the simulation will be described in the following sections.

Cam-clay Constitutive Model The modified Cam-clay model was developed by Roscoe and Burland (1968) and is a modification of the original Cam-clay model developed by Roscoe et al. 1958. Because the original model is not considered in this report, the modified Cam-clay model will simply be referred to as Cam-clay. This model is an elasto-plastic constitutive model with a nonlinear hardening and softening law which depends on the pre-consolidation pressure of the soil. The model determines the response of the soil based on the specific volume or void ratio, a deviator stress and a mean effective stress. Cam-clay is an associated plastic flow model in which the yield surface is defined as an ellipsoid in q-p space with no strength at the origin and pre-consolidation pressure (i.e. isotropic consolidation). Within the yield surface the material is elastic and as the stress state crosses the yield surface both plastic volumetric and deviatoric strains will develop. The material is either incrementally contractive or dilative depending on whether it is dense or loose of critical state. The material will harden or soften depending on the volumetric strains. At critical state the sample will undergo only deviatoric strain and therefore will not harden or soften. This model has a relatively simple formulation and is compatible with critical state soil mechanics and certain idealized clays. The formulation is shown graphically in Figure 3. Further details about Cam-clay can be found in Muir Wood (1990). Simulated Triaxial Test An isotropically consolidated, undrained triaxial test was simulated on a sample of Camclay. In FLAC this was simulated with a single element using the axisymmetric option within the software. The boundary conditions selected are shown in Figure 4. The horizontal axis of the element is considered to be the radial direction and the vertical axis is the axial direction. The nodes are numbered clockwise from the lower right corner as node 1, 2, 3 and 4. Each node has two degrees of freedom in the axial and radial direction. Node 1 and 2 are fixed in the radial direction to simulate the axisymmetric element. Node 3 is free to move in both directions and nodes 1 and 3 are fixed in the axial direction to simulate the end platen. To summarize, Node 1 is fixed, Node 2 is fixed radially, Node 3 is free and Node 4 is fixed axially. A constant confining pressure is applied between nodes 3 and 4 to simulate the cell pressure and a constant rate of axial strain was applied to the top of the element. As a consequence of the constant strain assumption the total axial load is not controlled directly. The effects of this will be examined in the results section of this report. The internal stresses in the element are initialized to the confining pressure to simulate an isotropically consolidated sample. The sample is initially saturated and the bulk modulus of water is defined to simulate the compressibility of water. Groundwater flow is turned off to simulate an undrained test. As plastic volumetric strains try to accumulate, the sample is unable to change volume due to saturation and the pore pressure will increase or decrease depending

on whether the sample is trying to contract or dilate. Two samples were simulated to capture this behavior. One was a lightly over-consolidated sample (OCR =1.5) which is loose of critical and a heavily over-consolidated sample (OCR = 20) which is dense of critical. The material properties were taken from published test results in Muir Wood (1990). These properties are summarized in Table 1. Analytical Solution To validate the results of the numerical solutions an analytical solution was used from Muir Wood (1990). This solution solves for the stresses in an undrained triaxial test at yielding, and critical state. A formula is also presented to calculate the stress path of the material between the initial yield point and critical state. The results of the analytical solutions for both the highly and lightly over-consolidated samples are presented in Figure 5. The predicted responses are consistent with general critical state theory in that the loose sample contracts and generates positive pore pressure, while the over-consolidated sample dilates and generates negative pore pressure. The calculations needed for the analytical solution were performed using the Mathcad software package and are shown in Appendix A. Numerical Results The numerical simulation was conducted using three different loading rates. The loading was applied as a constant rate of strain at the top of the model. The slowest loading rate was 0.01% strain per step which was increased to 0.5% strain per step and then to 10% strain per step. This increase in loading was meant to raise the equivalent step size of the simulation and gauge the effects on the results. Figure 6 through Figure 8 show the response of the lightly over-consolidated sample to each of the three loading rates and Figure 9 through Figure 11 show the response of the heavily over-consolidated sample. The figures show that the effective stresses predicted by the numerical models are in excellent agreement regardless of the step size. This is not surprising as Cam-clay has a very simple yield surface in which tangent lines will closely approximate the actual surface. This may not be the case if the loading crossed near the apex of the yield surface. Figure 12 shows the pore pressure response for both the lightly and heavily over-consolidated samples. Pore pressures are only shown for the smallest step size because the other paths were very erratic as suggested by the total stress paths shown in the other figures. As expected the lightly over-consolidated sample undergoes contraction and positive pore pressure generation. The heavily over-consolidated sample experiences contraction at first and then dilation. Selected points from the analytical and numerical solutions are shown in Tables 2 and 3 for comparison. Although the effective stress path is in good agreement regardless of the step size the total stress paths show how large steps can adversely affect the results. This triaxial test was simulated by applying and axial strain while holding the radial confining stress constant. This is

defined as a conventional triaxial test and the total stress path will rise at a slope of 3q to 1p (Powrie 2004). Only the step size of 0.01% produces a reasonable total stress path while the larger step sizes produce total stress paths which oscillate around the correct line. The reasons for this response will be explored next. In an undrained test pore pressures represent the sample attempting to change volume, but because the test is undrained this contraction or dilation occurs in the form of pore pressure. The pore pressure can be thought of as representative of the volumetric strains which would occur in a drained test. When the sample is loaded very quickly the pore pressure will suddenly spike or drop in response to the imposed strains. This would normally lower the effective stress of the sample, but in FLAC the constitutive model is only given displacements and velocities from which it produces stress and strains. Because the rate of strain is controlled by the loading, FLAC adjusts the total stress to maintain the proper strain rate. This adjustment occurs as the sample tries to maintain equilibrium under the large strains. In reality, the samples would likely form tension cracks when the effective stress dropped to zero, but the numerical solution prevents this and the error manifests itself in the total stress. Conclusions The formulation of the FLAC software package has been explored and the accuracy of the Cam-clay material model was examined by simulating an undrained triaxial test on a lightly and heavily over-consolidated sample. The results of these simulations show that FLAC does an excellent job in calculating the effective stress paths predicted by the analytical solution. It does this regardless of the step size chosen, but it can be seen from the total stress paths that the predicted strains are not accurate for the larger step sizes. These numerical errors are due to the large strains generated during each step. The dependence on step size shown in these simulations is not a surprising result. The accuracy of any explicit integration scheme is dependent on the size of the step chosen. This is a limitation of the integration method and does not speak to the accuracy of the software package. The implementation of the Cam-clay constitutive model appears to be functioning properly and the numerical methods in FLAC match well with the analytical solutions. As with all explicit integration schemes the step size must be small to ensure numerical stability and accuracy.

Table 1. Selected material parameters for Cam-clay

Material Parameter Lambda Kappa Gamma N p0' M phi' G Value 0.088 0.031 2.058 2.097 150 0.882 22.6 3000

Table 2. Results for lightly over-consolidated Cam-clay. OCR = 1.5 Analysis Method qyield Analytical Small T-Step Medium T-Step Large T-Step 62.2 62.3 62.2 62.3 pyield 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.1 qcs 73.2 73.0 73.1 73.1 p'cs 83.0 83.3 83.1 82.9 ucs 41.4 41.0 36 to 46 ?

Table 3. Results for heavily over-consolidated Cam-clay. OCR = 20 Analysis Method qyield Analytical Small T-Step 28.8 28.8 pyield 7.5 7.5 qcs 29.4 29.4 p'cs 33.3 33.1 ucs -16.0 -15.7 -12.5 to -19.5 ?

Medium T-Step Large T-Step

28.8 28.6

7.5 7.5

29.3 29.3

33.3 33.3

Finite Difference Example + =0 1 |1/2 = +1 |+1/2 =

| = | = 1

|+1/2 |1/2 2 (+1 2 + 1 )

= (+1 + 2 1 ) Figure 1. Finite difference example for a bar in uniaxial tension (after Bathe, 1996)

Elastic Predictor

q
Plastic Corrector

Figure 2. Schematic showing one large explicit step.

Cam-clay Constitutive Model

100 90 80 70 q (kPa) 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 0 50 p' (kPa) 100 150 Yield Surface CSL

Dilative

Contractive

P0 = Pre-consolidation pressure = 150 kPa

Figure 3. Schematic of Cam-clay constitutive model.

Figure 4. Boundary conditions for the axi-symmetric triaxial test

Analytical Response
100 90 80 70 q (kPa) 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 0 50 p' (kPa) 100 150 Low OCR High OCR CSL Yield Surface

Figure 5. Analytical solution to Cam-Clay loading.

Low OCR - Effective Stress

100 90 80 70 q (kPa) 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 0 50 p' (kPa) 100 150 Low OCR High Velocity - Effective Medium Velocity - Effective Low Velocity - Effective CSL Yield Surface

Figure 6. Numerical solutions of effective stress path for low OCR Cam-clay triaxial test.

Low OCR - Numerical Stress Paths

80 70 60 50 q (kPa) 40 30 20 10 0 -50 0 50 100 p' (kPa) 150 200 250 High Velocity - Effective High Velocity - Total Medium Velocity - Effective Medium Velocity - Total Low Velocity - Effective Low Velocity - Total

Figure 7. Total and effective stress paths for low OCR Cam-clay

Combined Plot
100 90 80 70 q (kPa) 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 0 50 p' (kPa) 100 150 Low OCR High Velocity - Effective High Velocity - Total Medium Velocity - Effective Medium Velocity - Total Low Velocity - Effective Low Velocity - Total CSL Yield Surface

Figure 8. Combined plot of all stress paths for low OCR Cam-clay.

High OCR - Effective Stress

100 90 80 70 q (kPa) 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 0 50 p' (kPa) 100 150 Low Velocity - Effective CSL Yield Surface High OCR High Velocity - Effective Medium Velocity - Effective

Figure 9. Numerical solutions of effective stress path for low OCR Cam-clay triaxial test.

High OCR - Numerical Stress Paths

35 30 25 High Velocity - Effective q (kPa) 20 15 10 5 0 -150 -100 -50 0 p' (kPa) 50 100 150 High Velocity - Total Medium Velocity - Effective Medium Velocity - Total Low Velocity - Effective Low Velocity - Total

Figure 10. Total and effective stress paths for high OCR Cam-clay

High OCR - Combined Plot

100 90 80 70 q (kPa) 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 0 50 p' (kPa) 100 150 High OCR High Velocity - Effective High Velocity - Total Medium Velocity - Effective Medium Velocity - Total Low Velocity - Effective Low Velocity - Total CSL Yield Surface

Figure 11. Combined plot of all stress paths for high OCR Cam-clay.

Pore Pressure Development

50 40 30 u (kPa) 20 10 0 0 -10 -20 Steps 500000 1000000 1500000 2000000 High OCR Low OCR

Figure 12. Pore pressure response of both the high and low OCR samples

References:
Bathe, K.J. (1996). Finite Element Procedures. New Jersey. Prentice-Hall, 1996. FLAC User Manual. (2001). Itasca Consulting Group. Minnesota. 2001. Kuhn H. W. and A.W Tucker. (1951). "Nonlinear programming". Proceedings of 2nd Berkeley Symposium. Berkeley: University of California Press. pp. 481492. Karush W. (1939). Minima of Functions of Several Variables with Inequalities as Side Constraints. M.Sc. Dissertation. Dept. of Mathematics, Univ. of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois. Muir Wood, D. (1990). Soil Behaviour and Critical State Soil Mechanics. Cambridge University Press. 1990. Oberkampf W.L., Trucano T.G. and Hirsch C. (2002). Verification, Validation and Predictive Capability in Computational Engineering and Physics. Invited Paper: Foundations for Verification and Validation in the 21st Century Workshop. Laurel, Maryland: Johns Hopkins Univeristy. October 22-23, 2002. Powrie, W. (2004). Soil Mechanics: Concepts and Applications. Spon Press. 2004. Roscoe, K. H.; Schofield, A. N.; Wroth, C. P. (1958), "On the Yielding of Soils", Geotechnique 8: 2253 Roscoe, K.H. and Burland, J.B. (1968). On the generalized stress-strain behaviour of wet clay. Engineering Plasticity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 535-609. Thom, A. and C. J. Apelt, Field Computations in Engineering and Physics. London. Van Nostrand, 1961

Appendix A: Mathcad Calculations