Numerical implementation and integration of bounding surface models for

cohesive soils

V.N. Kaliakin
University of Delaware, Newark, Delaware USA

ABSTRACT: Numerical aspects associated with an anisotropic, time-dependent bounding surface model for
cohesive soils are discussed. This includes an overview of the general incremental rate equations and a discussion
of the implicit integration of the model. Due to the internal structure of the formulation, integration techniques
proposed in the context of classical plasticity cannot directly be applied to bounding surface models.

1 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS 2 OVERVIEW OF THE MODEL

Over the past thirty years several constitutive mod-
els, possessing varying degrees of sophistication, have
been developed to simulate the mechanical behavior
of soils. A very promising class of plasticity-based
constitutive models for such materials is that founded
on the bounding surface concept (Dafalias 1986). The
prominent feature of this concept is the fact that inelas-
tic deformations can occur for stress points within or
on a bounding surface in general three-dimensional
stress space at a pace depending on the proxim-
ity of the actual stress point to a properly defined
image point on the surface itself. Thus, unlike clas-
sical elastoplasticity formulations, inelastic states are
not restricted only to those lying on a surface, thus
avoiding the abrupt transition between elastic and
inelastic response and, consequently, better simulating
the inelastic behavior of soils.
A model has recently been developed (Ling et al.
2002) that attempts to simplify the manner in which
and n scalar and tensor internal variables qn
the anisotropic, time-dependent response of cohe-
sive soils is simulated. This model combines aspects
of earlier anisotropic rate-independent formulations
(Anandarajah & Dafalias 1986; Dafalias 1987) with
the time-dependent elastoplastic-viscoplastic model
for isotropic cohesive of (Kaliakin & Dafalias 1990).
Owing to the internal structure of the formula-
tion, integration techniques proposed in the context
of classical plasticity cannot be directly applied to
bounding surface models. The present paper discusses
the numerical aspects associated with the aforemen-
tioned anisotropic, time-dependent bounding surface
model. This includes an overview of the general incre-
mental rate equations and a discussion of the implicit
and qn .
integration of the model.
2.1 Introductory comments
Although the formulation of the elastoplastic-
viscoplastic bounding surface model is quite general
in nature (Kaliakin & Dafalias 1990), the model is spe-
cialized herein for the case of cohesive soils exhibiting
inherent and stress induced anisotropy (Ling et al.
2002). Inherent anisotropy is attributed to preferred
particle arrangement during sedimentation. It is a
physical characteristic existing in the material that
is entirely independent of applied stresses. Stress-
induced anisotropy, on the other hand, is a physical
characteristic resulting almost exclusively from the
deformation associated with changes in applied stress.
In the subsequent development tensors are pre-
sented in indicial form with the indices obeying the
summation convention over repeated indices. Vectors
and matrices are represented by bold symbols.
The material state is defined in terms of the effective
stress ij
that account for the non-conservative nature of soils.
The effective stress is related to the total (phenomeno-
logical) stress ij and to the pore fluid pressure u by
where ij represents the Kronecker delta and compres-
sive stresses are taken as positive.
2.2 Definition of stress invariants
Invariance requirements under superposed rigid body
rotation require that the bounding surface be a function
of the direct and joint isotropic invariants of ij
The joint invariants characterize material anisotropy

371
Copyright 2005 Taylor & Francis Group plc, London, UK
(Baker & Desai 1984) and are thus used herein. In
particular, the following stress invariants are used:
where the reduced deviatoric stress tensor is defined by
and sij is the deviatoric stress tensor, such that
sij = ij
13 ij kk
. The quantities J a and a are the sec-
ond reduced deviatoric stress invariant and the reduced
Lode angle, respectively. Finally, ij is the symmet-
ric second-order anisotropic tensor. The values of
a = /6 correspond to conditions of axisymmetric
compression and extension, respectively.
2.3 The radial mapping rule
Analytically, the bounding surface is defined by
where a bar indicates an image point on the bounding
surface.
The prominent feature of the bounding surface con-
cept is the prediction of inelastic deformations for
stress points (I1 , J a , a ) within or on the surface at
a pace depending on the proximity of (I1 , J a , a )
to a unique image point on the surface, assigned
by the following radial mapping rule (Dafalias &
Herrmann 1986):
where the dimensionless quantity b (b 1) is
determined in terms of the material state an explicit
definition of F, Io represents a measure of the pre-
consolidation history, and C (0 C < 1) is a dimen-
sionless model parameter. The direction of inelastic
loading-unloading is defined as the gradient of F
at (I1 , J, ).
To complete the formulation, a relation
between the plastic modulus Kp (associated with the
actual stress point) and a bounding plastic modulus
K p (associated with the image point) is established as
372
Copyright 2005 Taylor & Francis Group plc, London, UK
a function of the Euclidean distance between I1 , J ,
and (I1 , J, );
viz.,
where H denotes a proper scalar hardening function of
the state, sp (sp 1) is a dimensionless model param-
eter defining a region of purely elastic response within
the bounding surface, r represents the Euclidean dis-
tance between the points CIo and (I1 , J , ),
and the
symbols <> denote Macaulay brackets.
2.4 Hardening of the bounding surface
The bounding surface is assumed to undergo isotropic
hardening along the hydrostatic (I1 ) axis. In addition,
simulation of the anisotropy of the material requires
that the surface also undergo rotational and distortional
hardening (Ling et al. 2002). The following hardening
rules are thus proposed.
The isotropic hardening is controlled by a single
internal variable that measures the change in volu-
metric strain. More precisely, this internal variable
is the inelastic part ei of the incremental change in
void ratio e. For convenience, the evolution of the sur-
face is related to Io through the following expression
(Kaliakin & Dafalias 1990):
where the parameters and denote the slopes
of the consolidation and swell/re-compression lines,
respectively, on a plot of void ratio versus the natural
logarithm of I1 . In equation (9) IL is a nonzero limiting
value of I1 such that for I1 < IL the relation between I1
and the elastic part of the void ratio (ee ) changes con-
tinuously from logarithmic to linear. In this manner, the
singularity of the elastic stiffness near I1 = 0, result-
ing from excessive material softening, is removed. It
is important to note that IL is not a model parameter;
its value is typically taken equal to one-third of the
atmospheric pressure Pa .
Based on earlier anisotropic models, the bound-
ing surface must also exhibit rotational (and not
purely kinematic) hardening (Sekiguchi & Ohta 1977).
The rotational rate of the bounding surface is con-
trolled by the evolution of anisotropic tensor. Based on
experimental observations, the following anisotropic
rotational hardening rule is proposed:
where governed by the following equation (Anandarajah &
Dafalias 1986):

The quantities 1 and 2 are positive model param-

eters, and Io is included to normalize the evolution where
equation. The anisotropic measure is defined by

The quantity is included in order to express the
anisotropic saturation for general three-dimensional
stress states at critical state. The following analytical
form is thus assumed:
and 3 is a model parameter. From equation (16) it is
evident that increases in J lead to flatter surfaces.
a
2.5 The failure criterion
The following failure criterion is used in conjunction
with the present model:

Where N represents the slope of the critical state line

in I1 J a space and varies with reduced Lode angle
according to

Based upon the above discussion related to harden-

ing and recalling equation (5), the bounding surface is
thus defined analytically by
where k = Ne /Nc , with Ne = N (/6) and Nc = N (/6)
being the values of N associated with triaxial extension
and compression, respectively.
The quantity , which is defined by

2.6 Decomposition of strain tensor

accounts for the change in the loading direction with
respect to anisotropic tensor (Anandarajah & Dafalias
1986).
The model parameter R is used to control the ratio
of the major to minor axis of the elliptical bounding
surface. There are two separate mechanisms associ-
ated with the evolution of R (Anandarajah & Dafalias
1986). First, the bounding surface widens when the
clay fabrics move to preferred orientations. That is, a
smaller value of R permits a lower pore water pressure
response. Secondly, the bounding surface flattens with
loading involving principal stress rotation. That is, a
larger R gives sharper pore water pressure response.
Based on the foregoing discussion, the distortional
hardening of the bounding surface is assumed to be
The strain rate is additively decomposed into elastic
and an inelastic part. The latter consisting of a delayed
(viscoplastic) and an instantaneous (plastic) part; viz.,
where ij denotes the infinitesimal strain tensor, the
superscripts e, v and p denote its elastic, viscoplastic
and plastic components, respectively, and a superposed
dot indicates a material time derivative or rate.
Assuming elastic isotropy to be independent of the
rate of loading and to be unaltered by inelastic defor-
mation, the response associated with the elastic strain
rate is expressed in terms of the elastic bulk and shear

373
Copyright 2005 Taylor & Francis Group plc, London, UK
moduli, K and G, respectively. The former modulus is
related to I1 through
where ein represents the void ratio at initiation of load-
ing. The elastic shear modulus is computed form K
and a specified value of Poissons ratio v.
The equation for the viscoplastic strain rate is based
upon a generalization of the theory of Perzyna (1966).
According to this theory, this rate is a function of
the distance between the current stress and that
on the boundary of a quasi-static elastic domain.
For the present development the normalized overstress
3 NUMERICAL IMPLEMENTATION
3.1 Vector-matrix form of constitutive equations
Whereas the previous equations have been written
in tensor form, for purposes of performing numeri-
cal analyses it is more convenient to express these in
vector-matrix form. This is done by suitably reducing
the higher-order tensors by condensing their indices.
As a result, the constitutive relations are written in
vector-matrix form as
where the effective stress and strain tensors are vec-
torized in the following manner:

constitutes this distance. The elastic domain is rep-
resented by the implicitly defined elastic nucleus.
Although the nucleus boundary is equivalent to the
concept of a yield surface, it is not identical since
the point (I1 , J , ) can cross this boundary and move
outside with a smooth inelastic transition at = r/sv .
Assuming an associative flow rule gives
and V represents the viscoplastic contribution to the
constitutive relations. In the above expressions the
superscript T denotes the operation of matrix trans-
position. The engineering components of shear strain
ij are twice the tensor components of shear strain ij .
3.2 Incremental equations
For the special case of associated flow,

where V and n represent model parameters whose val-

ues can be determined from a single creep or stress
relaxation experiment. The creep process terminates
as the stress point (I1 , J , ) approaches (in the limit) and
the elastic nucleus. It is well known that after the pri-
mary phase of creep, the creep rate either decreases
(tending, in the limit, to zero) or, at high stress lev-
els, increases to the tertiary phase followed by creep
rupture. By controlling the size of the elastic nucleus
(via sv ) and the specific functional form of the scalar
overstress function (via V and n), the former case can
realistically be simulated using the present model. The
model does not purport to simulate creep rupture well.
The plastic strain rate is given by
where C is a (6 6) matrix of elastic coefficients, r is
a (6 1) vector of terms from the symmetric second-
order tensor F/ ij and

where an associative flow rule has again been

assumed. The scalar loading index L, written in terms
of increments of total strain, is given in the following
section.

374
Copyright 2005 Taylor & Francis Group plc, London, UK
where is a (6 1) vector of terms from the symmetric
second-order tensor ij , is a (6 1) vector of terms
from the Kronecker ij , and the scalar Rkk is given by
The associated scalar loading function is
where 
and  represent the increment in effective
stress and strain, respectively. The iteration process
is continued until some specified convergence crite-
rion is satisfied, or until a specified maximum number
of iterations have failed to yield convergence (an
indication of possible failure or unstable behavior).
Integrating equation (25) from time tn1 to time tn ,
and approximating the integrals by a simple two-point
formula gives the following expression:
where t = tn1 tn and (0 1). Values of
= 0, 1/2, and 1 give forward, trapezoidal, and back-
ward integration, respectively. Although trapezoidal
integration is second-order accurate (all other values of
give first-order accurate methods), in rare instances
it may be advantageous to use = 0 in order to reduce
iteration requirements (at the expense of smaller step
sizes).
Due to the discontinuous nature of inelastic behav-
ior at the initiation of an unloading process, both the
matrices (n1) Cep and (n) Cep will be functions of the
stress and strain states at step n. For this reason,
the predicted value for (n) Cep is denoted by (n;k1) Cep ,
etc. Substitution of these estimates into equation (35)
3.3 Incremental solution strategies results in an expression relating the estimates of (n) 

and (n) 
for iteration k; viz.,
The numerical solution of equation (25) using, for
example, the finite element method, requires the equa-
tion be cast in an incremental form. Several numerical
methods have been developed for calculating incre-
where
mental solutions to viscoplasticity problems. A simple
family of solutions that can be viewed as approx-
imations to the Newton-Raphson method is briefly
discussed here. Members of this family include the
classical method of successive approximations and and
the popular tangent stiffness method (Owen &
Hinton 1980). The equations to be presented can,
with little additional effort, be adapted for use with
a number of other methods. Equation (36) is the desired incremental constitu-
In discussing an incremental analysis using equa- tive relation for iteration k of increment n and, in the
tion (25), the n-th step in the analysis is considered; Newton-Raphson method, is used for the calculation
i.e., the solution has been found at step (n 1) and of the residual vector (Herrmann et al 1987).
it is now desired to calculate the incremental change In addition, the Newton-Raphson method requires
that will give the solution at step n. Because of the the Jacobian matrix. An approximation to this matrix
nonlinear nature of elastoplastic-viscoplastic behav- can be written in the following form:
ior, iteration is, in general, required to establish the
incremental change. At the end of the (k 1)st iter-
ation for increment n, the estimates of the effective
stress and strain are given by the following expression: Values of = 1/2 and 1 correspond to the meth-
ods of successive approximation and tangent stiffness,
respectively (Owen & Hinton 1980).

375
Copyright 2005 Taylor & Francis Group plc, London, UK
4 IMPLICIT INTEGRATION SCHEMES
As in the case of standard elastoplasticity formula-
tions, the prime requirement for the integration scheme
used on the bounding surface constitutive relations is
that the material state be on (b = 1) or within (b > 1)
the surface. Unlike standard elastoplasticity formula-
tions, however, states within the bounding surface are
typically not elastic. Consequently, integration tech-
niques proposed in the context of classical plasticity
cannot be directly applied to the bounding surface
model.
Past work in implicitly integrating the constitutive
relations for the form of the elastoplastic-viscoplastic
bounding surface model have been restricted to the
version of the model for isotropically consolidated
cohesive soils (Herrmann et al. 1987, Manzari and
Nour 1997).
The approach employed by Herrmann et al. (1987)
used an adaptive multistep integration procedure in
conjunction with local iteration and radial return. The
resulting implementation was shown to be robust for
a number of applications.
Manzari and Nour (1997) proposed a different
approach. In their integration scheme, an additional
rate equation for the dimensionless variable b was
solved for in each iteration of each loading incre-
ment. In this manner the material state was assured
of lying either on or within the bounding surface in
stress invariant space.
The approach used by Manzari and Nour (1997)
was, however, limited in application to a simple
bounding surface version of the Modified Cam Clay
model (Roscoe and Burland 1968). This approach
has recently been extended to the full three-invariant
anisotropic, time-dependent bounding surface model.
This is possible because the model requires the consis-
tency condition to be satisfied for not only the plastic
but also for the viscoplastic portion of the response.
The approach is particularly useful in that the radial
return algorithm is avoided. This is particularly advan-
tageous in general applications of the model when the
bounding surface hardens not only isotropically, but
also undergoes rotational and distortional hardening.
5 CONCLUSIONS
Numerical aspects associated with an anisotropic,
time-dependent bounding surface model for cohesive
376
Copyright 2005 Taylor & Francis Group plc, London, UK
soils have been discussed in this paper. This included
a brief overview of the general incremental rate equa-
tions, a derivation of the vector-matrix form of the
incremental equations, and an overview of the implicit
integration of the model. Due to the internal structure
of the formulation, integration techniques proposed in
the context of classical plasticity cannot directly be
applied to bounding surface models.
REFERENCES
Anandarajah, A. & Dafalias, Y. F. 1986. Bounding Sur-
face Plasticity III: Application to Anisotropic Cohesive
Soils. Journal of Engineering Mechanics, ASCE, 112(12):
12921318.
Baker, R. & Desai, C. S. 1984. Induced Anisotropy During
Plastic Straining. International Journal for Numerical and
Analytical Methods in Geomechanics, 8: 167185.
Dafalias, Y. F. 1986. Bounding Surface Plasticity. I: Math-
ematical Foundation and the Concept of Hypoplastic-
ity. Journal of Engineering Mechanics, ASCE, 112(9):
966987.
Dafalias, Y. F. 1987. An Anisotropic Critical State Soil Plas-
ticity Model, Mech. Res. Commun. 13, No. 6, 341347.
Dafalias, Y. F. & Herrmann, L. R. 1986. Bounding Sur-
face Plasticity II: Application to Isotropic Cohesive
Soils. Journal of Engineering Mechanics, ASCE, 112(12):
12631291.
Herrmann, L. R., Kaliakin, V. N., Shen, C. K., Mish, K. D. &
Zhu, Z-Y. 1987. Numerical Implementation of a Plas-
ticity Model for Cohesive Soils. Journal of Engineering
Mechanics, ASCE, 113(4): 500519.
Kaliakin, V. N. & Dafalias, Y. F. 1990. Theoretical Aspects of
the Elastoplastic-Viscoplastic Bounding Surface Model
for Cohesive Soils. Soils and Foundations, 30(3): 1124.
Ling, H. I., Yue, D., Kaliakin, V. N. & Themelis, N. J. (2002).
An Anisotropic Elasto-Plastic Bounding Surface Model
for Cohesive Soil. Journal of Engineering Mechanics,
ASCE, 128(7): 748758.
Manzari, M. T. & Nour, M. A. 1997. On Implicit Integration
of Bounding Surface Plasticity Models. Computers and
Structures, 63(3): 385395.
Owen, D. R. J. & Hinton, E. 1980. Finite Elements in
Plasticity-Theory and Practice, Swansea: Pineridge Press.
Perzyna, P. (1966). Fundamental Problems in Viscoplasticity.
Advances in Applied Mechanics, 9, 243377.
Roscoe, K. E. & Burland, J. B. 1968. On the Generalized
Stress-Strain Behavior of Wet Clay, Engineering Plastic-
ity J. Heyman, and F.A. Leckie eds., Cambridge University
Press, Cambridge, U. K., 535609.
Sekiguchi, H. & Ohta, H. 1977. Induced Anisotropy and
Time Dependency in Clays, Constitutive Equations of
Soils, Proc. of Specialty Session 9, 9th. ICSMFE, Tokyo,
229238.