Proceedings of the V-th International Geomechanics Conference

18 21 June 2012, Varna, Bulgaria

APPLICATION OF THE DISTURBED STATE CONCEPT IN EVALUATION

OF A DEVELOPED ELASTO-PLASTIC CONSTITUTIVE MODEL FOR ROCKFILLS
Mehdi Veiskarami1*, Ali Ghorbani2, Mohammad Reza Alavipour3
1Assistant Professor, University of Guilan, Guilan, Iran, mveiskarami@gmail.com
2Assistant Professor, University of Guilan, Guilan, Iran, ghorbani@guilan.ac.ir
3M.Sc. Student, University of Guilan, Guilan, Iran, ma_alavipour@yahoo.com
ABSTRACT
The disturbed state concept (DSC), originally developed by Desai during the past two decades, was found
very beneficial in modelling granular materials as well as others. A deforming elasto-plastic engineering solid,
according to this concept, can be considered as a composition of these two states where the portion of the
second state, i.e. the fully adjusted state, increases gradually as the loading and deformation advance. In this
paper, this concept has been employed to describe coarse granular materials behavior and a constitutive
elasto-plastic model has been developed based on this concept and applied to experimental triaxial
compression and extension tests on rockfill materials.
Keywords: Geomaterial, Rockfill, Constitutive Modeling, DSC, Triaxial Tests, Plasticity.
INTRODUCTION
There are several applications for rockfill materials in geotechnical engineering, e.g. in construction of
highway embankments, earth and rockfill dams and basement of high-rise buildings. As a geomechanical
standpoint, the behavior of such materials can be characterized by making use of the theories developed for
the mechanics of solid materials, i.e. elasticity and plasticity. Based on the elements of these theories, a
number of constitutive models have been developed for granular materials [1-5]. Although rockfill materials
show relatively a nonlinear elastic behavior, application of more realistic elasto-plastic models for such
materials have been reported In rockfill materials [6-9]. Since difficulties arise in testing rockfill materials even
in large scale triaxial test apparatus, techniques like scalping (cut-off), replacement of materials, generation of
quadratic size distribution curve and parallel gradation techniques have been employed to reduce the size of
tested materials to i) be representative of the original behavior and ii) to enable testing the materials in
conventional large scale triaxial test apparatus. Among abovementioned methods, the latter, i.e. parallel
gradation, was found to be more convenient and appropriate [8,10]. In the current work, the behavior of rockfill
materials was investigated through experiments and theory. The disturbed state concept of Desai (2001) was
employed to characterize the geomechanical behavior of such materials and a constitutive elasto-plastic model
was developed.
The Disturbed State Concept - Theory
Unlike cohesive materials, granular matter exhibit much more strength when subjected to high levels
of confining pressure. Several criteria have been developed for the yielding of such materials which are all
confining pressure dependent [1,11-12]. According to Desai (2001), who developed the disturbed state
concept (DSC) for the first time, a deforming material does not exist in an entirely unique composition, i.e. any
material element is treated as a mixture of an initial part, also known as the relative intact or RA state, and the
self-adjusted part also known as the fully adjusted or FA state. Since the deformation could have started from
a state which is not exactly an ideal intact state, the term relative intact is used. The fully adjusted state is also
an idealized state which can be reached asymptotically once the materials deform reasonably large. The
intermediate behaviors correspond to a composition of the reference and the fully adjusted behaviors. A
parameters called, the disturbance parameter, D, is used to demonstrate the contribution of each part in the
overall behavior of a solid, obeying the disturbed state concept. Determination of this parameter is the key
question along with the behavior of materials in these two idealized behaviors at the onset of the deformation
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Proceedings of the V-th International Geomechanics Conference

18 21 June 2012, Varna, Bulgaria

and at the final stages of failure [7]. Figure 1, shows the material behavior decomposition into the relative
intact and fully adjusted parts in a DSC model.

Figure 1 A representation of the disturbed state concept (Desai, 2001)

Based on Desai (2001), the relative intact state can be defined by an elastic or elasto-plastic behavior.
The same concepts can be applied to define the behavior of material in the fully adjusted state, or, as an
idealized behavior, by a viscous liquid without shear strength.
Laboratory Tests on Rockfill
An experimental program was carried out on a quarried rockfill material in a large scale triaxial
apparatus in Guilan University soil mechanics laboratory and the technical laboratory of the Highway and
Transportation Ministry of Iran. Coarse-grained rockfill materials were collected from the Shahriar pit located in
Alborz province (in central region of Alborz Mountain range located in Iran). This pit is one of the most
important pits in this region since it supplies a number of projects in the northern regions of Iran and hence, is
of relatively great importance to be reasonably characterized. Sand-size to cobble-size materials are produced
in this quarry. Consolidated-drained tests were carried out to measure both stress-strain and volumetric-strain
behavior of samples at a wide range of confining pressures, as far as the capacity of the apparatus allowed.
Supplementary tests were also performed to find out general rockfill geotechnical properties of the materials
which are outlined in Table 1. These tests included the particle size distribution (aggregation) test (ASTM
D422-63), Los Angeles test (ASTM C-131) and mineralogy (chemical) tests to describe different mineral
constituent of material. Figure 2 shows the particle size distribution of materials. It is remarkable that the
aggregation curve was developed based on the Fullers curve (after Fuller and Thompson, 1907) which
accounts for the densest state of granular materials. Also, the Los Angeles test results indicate the particles
weight loss to range between 16 and 21%.

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Proceedings of the V-th International Geomechanics Conference

18 21 June 2012, Varna, Bulgaria

Figure 2 Particle size distribution of Shahriar quarried rockfill

A series of triaxial compression tests were carried out in different confining pressures to cover a wide
range of confining pressures required for further study (up to 800 kPa). Also, triaxial extension tests were
performed by reducing the cell pressure under a constant vertical pressure to find the best fitted yield surface.
Variations of stress, strain and volume change during the tests, performed at different confining pressures and
normalized to the mean pressure are shown in Figure 3. This plot reveals two important matters: i) the ultimate
state of all samples are almost the same when normalized to the confining pressure and ii) there is no peak
strength in samples tested at higher confining pressures which can be a result of particle breakage and, further
transition from a relatively intact to fully adjusted state. A summary of observations are presented in Table 1
showing the influence of the level of confining pressure on the strength of tested samples.
Once the strength parameters were determined from the test results, it was found that the Lade-Duncan
(1975) yield criterion best fitted the results and thus, the yield criterion of Lade-Duncan was adopted to define the
state of the yield, as well as the failure. It is shown in Figure 4, plotted on the -plane (octahedral plane) where
stresses are normalized to the confining pressure of relevant tests. Further study showed that the conventional
friction angle based on a Mohr-Coulomb yield criteria can also be found in any test. However, the influence of the
confining pressure on the results in a nonlinear yield envelope, i.e. the peak friction angle is not a material constant
(when it is measured at peak strength), but a function of the confining pressure. This fact is shown in Figure 5. Such
observations were reported for dense granular materials by several authors [13-17].

Figure 3 Normalized stress-strain-volume change curves

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Proceedings of the V-th International Geomechanics Conference

18 21 June 2012, Varna, Bulgaria
Table 1

Triaxial compression tests results at failure

Apparent friction angle at failure by Mohr-Coulomb criterion
(Deg.)

Confining pressure (kPa)

Peak

C.S.

42.2
38.9
38.4
36.7
36.1

38.0
35.8
36.4
36.0
36.1

50
100
200
400
800

4
3

Extension

Compression

2
1
0

-1

Yield Surface

-2
-3
-4
-4

-2

Figure 4 the Lade-Duncan failure envelope on the octahedral plane and the ultimate strengths of samples

45
44

Peak Friction Angle (Deg.)

43
42

Trendline

41
40
39
38
37
36
35

200

400
600
Confining Pressure (kPa)

800

1000

Figure 5 Variations of peak friction angles with confining pressure in different tests

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Proceedings of the V-th International Geomechanics Conference

18 21 June 2012, Varna, Bulgaria

Development of a DSC Based Constitutive Model

In this section, a constitutive model based on the disturbed state concept is presented which describes
the geomechanical behavior of rockfill materials observed in experiments. A complete elasto-plastic
constitutive model must comprise the following elements: i) elasticity relationships; a yield criterion; iii) a plastic
potential function and iv) a hardening law. There are two distinct behaviors which can be identified in the tests
if the DSC is adopted: a relative intact (RI) behavior and a fully adjusted (FA) state.
Material Behavior in the RI State
According to the definitions for the relative intact state, material type and the range of confining
pressures, it was found to be convenient to assume a nonlinear elastic behavior for this state. It can be found
easily by stress-strain data obtained at the lowest confining pressure, i.e. at 50kPa. This confining pressure is
the lowermost value below which, no test is available. Based on developments by Varadarajan et al. (2003),
the nonlinear stress-strain behavior can be expressed as:
1
(1)
1 3 =
a + b 1
In this equation, 1 and 3 are the major and minor principal stresses, 1 is the major principal strain
and a and b are model parameters. These model parameters can be determined from data obtained
experimentally at the early stages of loading under the lowermost confining pressure. For example, a equals
1/Ei where Ei is the initial (tangent) modulus of elasticity, that is, the initial slope of the stress-strain curve
under the lowermost confining pressure (here, 50kPa). The parameter b can be found by curve-fitting to the
data from the beginning of the loading up to the peak strength. Attention should be drawn to the fact that the
elastic behavior changes from a confining pressure to another one. It can be included in the development of
the relative intact behavior by assuming the change of the initial modulus of elasticity as a function of the
confining pressure through a power-law equation given below:

Ei = Eref 3
Pa

(2)

where, the exponent M is a parameter, determined experimentally by plotting the initial tangent modulus of all
tests on a semi-logarithmic plot and Eref is the initial tangent modulus corresponding to the unit confining
pressure which can also be determined by extrapolation of the data to the unit confining pressure. Moreover,
Pa is the atmosphere pressure to make the equation dimensionless. It should be noted that the Poissons ratio
can also be easily determined from the axial strain-volume change diagram in the course of loading.
Material Behavior in the FA State
A hardening elasto-plastic behavior was assumed to govern the FA state. As a central assumption in
development of the DSC based constitutive model, it was assumed that the stress-strain behavior of samples
is governed by the FA state when the sample is tested at the highest confining pressure and at reasonably
large strains which guarantee an inelastic behavior to commence (e.g. beyond 2% to 3% axial strain).
Therefore, the model parameters can be calibrated by making use of the data obtained for the test at the
uppermost value of the confining pressure. In this stage, the yield criterion is of the highest importance since it
will be needed to find the plastic strain increments. Several attempts have been made to find the most general
form of a yield surface for coarse-graiend geomeaterials. To reduce the number of required model parameters
and based on the experimental observations, the yield criterion of Lade and Duncan has been adopted which
complied with the results reasonably:
(3)
f ( I1 , I 3 , k1 ) = I13 k1 I 3 = 0
I1 = tr ij = ii

(4a)

I 3 = Det ij = eijk i1 j 2 k 3

(4b)
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Proceedings of the V-th International Geomechanics Conference

18 21 June 2012, Varna, Bulgaria

where, I1 and I3 are the first and the third stress invariants respectively, k1 is a model parameter (always
greater than 27), eijk is the permutation symbol and [ij] is the matrix representation of the stress tensor. A
threshold value for k1 should be found experimentally beyond which, plastic strains start to develop. The
plastic potential function was also assumed to be the same in shape, as the yield criterion:
(5)
g ( I1 , I 3 , k2 ) = I13 k2 I 3
Again, k2 is a model parameters which is yet undetermined.
Since an elastic behavior must also be defined for this state, it was assumed to obey a linear elastic
stress-strain relationship with the same model parameters as for the relative intact state. As stated before, the
development of the DSC based constitutive model was started by assuming a nonlinear elastic stress-strain
behavior for the relative intact state. Having known this state, the stress-strain relationship can be
decomposed to RI and FA parts. Moreover, to find a relationship between the model parameter, k1 at different
stages of loading, i.e. to establish the hardening rule, the plastic strains have been first decomposed from the
observed stress-strain behavior of samples tested at the highest confining pressure, i.e. at 400kPa and
800kPa. Then, the trajectory of the plastic strains have been computed and plotted versus the computed
values of k1 at different stages of loading. This trajectory, D, is defined as:
D = ( d ijp d ijp )

1/ 2

(6)

The relationship between D and k1 was found from the results obtained for those samples which had
the most tendencies to show the FA state, i.e. those tested at the highest confining pressure. It should be
noted that decomposition at this stage was done by assuming that the material behaves, after some amount of
strains, completely in a fully adjusted state. It corresponds to setting the value of the disturbance parameter, D,
equal to unity when decomposing the plastic strains from the total strains. Figure 6 shows the variation of the
total plastic strain trajectory with k1 for different samples.
75 Toward the
RI state

70

Toward the FA state

65
60

k1k1

55
50
45
40
Equation
200kPa
400kPa
800kPa

35
30
25

0.02

0.04

D
xi-D

0.06

0.08

0.1

Figure 6 Relationship between the trajectory of the plastic strain and the model parameter, k1
A hyperbolic equation of the following form:
D
k1 =
1 + 1 D

(7)

was found to be reasonably fitted to the test data with parameters 1 and 1.
By the same analogy, a similar form was adopted for the variations of k2, the model parameter
accounting for the plastic potential function:
D
(8)
k2 =
2 + 2 D
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Proceedings of the V-th International Geomechanics Conference

18 21 June 2012, Varna, Bulgaria

Having known the plastic strains from the tests on samples at the highest confining pressure, it is
possible to find the unknown parameters 1 and 1 simply by a curve-fitting scheme. To determine the
relationship between the value of k2 and the total plastic strain trajectory however, it is required to compute k2
at different stages of loading. A parameter, p, is defined as the ratio of the lateral to the vertical plastic strain
increment as follows:
d p
6 I 2 2k
(9)
p = 3p = 1 2 2 12 3
d1
3I1 k 2 3
d ijp = d

g
g I1 g I 3
)
= d (
+
ij
I1 ij I 3 ij

d 1p = d

g
= d (3I12 k 2 32 )
1

(11a)

d 3p = d

g
= d (6 I12 2k2 1 3 )
3

(11a)

(10)

In these equations, d is the plastic multiplier and dijp is the plastic strain increment and d1p and d3p
are major and minor principal plastic strain increments. The parameter, p, is computed over the entire range
of the observed stress-strain data (when decamped to give only the plastic strains, having known the nonlinear
elastic RI state) after some threshold, and then applied to find the parameter k2. It should be noted that the
strain increment comprise the elastic and plastic strain increments. Therefore, once the plastic strain is
determined by the flow rule (which is here non-associative), the elastic behavior can be found by the elasticity
equations as follows:
(12)
d ij = Eijkl d kle
where, Eijkl is the elastic constitutive tensor. During any elasto-plastic deformation, the yield criterion must hold,
and hence, the consistency condition must be met [18]. Therefore:
df ( I1 , I 3 , k ) =

f
f k1
d ij +
d ijp = 0
p
ij
k1 ij

(13)

However, the plastic strain increment is related to the stress increment by the flow rule and hence:
df ( I1 , I 3 , k ) =

f
f k1
d ij +
ij
k1 ijp

g
d
ij

= 0

(14)

Moreover, the elasticity equations can be used to derive the stress increment-elastic strain increment:
d ij = Eijkl d kle = Eijkl (d kl d klp ) = Eijkl (d kl d

g
)
kl

(15)

This latter equation can be substituted in the consistency equation and further rearrangement will
result in the equation for the plastic multiplier as follows:
f
Eijkl d kl
ij
d =
f
g
f k1 g
Eijkl

ij
kl k1 ijp ij

(16)

Determination of the Disturbance Parameter, D

The relationship for the disturbance parameter suggested by Varadarajan et al. (2003) requires a
relatively complicated elaboration and intermediate parameters. Therefore, in this study, the original form of
the disturbance parameter defined by Desai and Toth (1996), following Weibull (1951) and Lewis (1982), was
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18 21 June 2012, Varna, Bulgaria

employed as follows:
w s

D

D = Du 1 1 +
h

(17)

where w, s and h are parameters which control the width, shape and height of the disturbance function when
plotted against D. Du is a parameters which governs the actual value of D when the fully adjusted state is
reached. This means, the fully adjusted state cannot be reached unless in an idealized condition; in practice,
at relatively large strain, the portion of the fully adjusted state in the deforming matter is close to but not equal
to unity. Moreover, it is possible to make the following assumption [7]:
(18)
d ija = d iji = d ijc
It means that there is no relative motion between the RI and FA states, that is, the observed strain
increments are the same as the strains in the RI and FA parts. Such assumption, although leads to errors in
volume change prediction, simplifies the determination of the model parameters. Eventually, it is remarkable
that once the disturbance function has been found, the stress state at each stage of the loading can be
computed as follows:
(19)
d ija = (1 D ) d iji + Dd ijc + dD ( d ijc d iji )
In this equation, dija, diji and dijc are stress increments in the observed, RI and FA states
respectively as defined by Desai (2001).
Predictions Made by the Developed Constitutive Model
Once the calibrations were done and model parameters were found for a selected test results,
predictions were made for the remaining ones. Model parameters corresponding to the RI states are:
Eref=180kPa, =0.21, M=0.52 and b=100 (Pa). Model parameter a can be found from Ei. Model parameters for
the FA state are shown in Table 2. It is considerable that a threshold value for k1 was found to be roughly
equal to 38 computed at 2% axial strain, beyond which, material starts showing an inelastic behavior.
Table 2

Model parameters for the fully adjusted state

Model Parameters

1
1
2
2
w
h
s

Value
0.003
0.03
0.0001
0.045
2.05
0.25
200

A computer code in MATLAB was developed to predict the stress-strain-volume change behavior of
samples by this DSC based model. Figure 7 shows the predicted versus measured data points in terms of
stress-strain and axial strain-volumetric strain plots. As the plots say, predictions comply reasonably with the
measured data. As it is obvious, predictions are reasonably in agreement with measurements.

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Proceedings of the V-th International Geomechanics Conference

18 21 June 2012, Varna, Bulgaria

(a)

Predicted

(b)

Predicted

(c)

Predicted

(d)

Predicted

Figure 7 Predicted and measured data for the triaxial tests on rockfill materials:
(a) 3=100kPa, (b) 3=200kPa, (c) 3=400kPa and (d) 3=800kPa
Conclusions
The geomechnical behavior of rockfills was investigated through experimental large scale triaixial
compression and extension tests. Laboratory tests were carried out at different confining pressures and the
results were used to further study of the behavior of materials in a theoretical manner. An insight into the
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18 21 June 2012, Varna, Bulgaria

results revealed that the material behavior can be described by a rather advanced constitutive model for
granular materials. The concept of the disturbed state was employed and the yield criterion of Lade and
Duncan was fitted to the results. Moreover, a nonlinear elastic behavior was assumed for the materials at
relative intact state. As a result, a complete elasto-plastic DSC based constitutive model was developed and
determination of the model parameters was described. Predictions were made showing that the model can
predict the geomechanical behavior of rockfills reasonably.
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