Triaxial Tests On Sand

Triaxial Tests on Sand
37-1

In this tutorial, RS2 will be used to model the behavior of sand in triaxial
loading conditions, considering both drained and undrained behavior.
Loose sands, while shearing in drained triaxial test, show a hardening
behavior and decrease in volume (compaction). In undrained triaxial test,
(very) loose sands will undergo static liquefaction. The deviatoric
mechanism (shear yield surface) of the Softening/Hardening model in RS2
is adequate for simulating such behavior. Note that this model in its
simplest form has one additional model parameter than that of the
elasto-perfect-plastic Mohr Coulomb model.
Topics covered
Determining material properties from experimental data
Drained triaxial tests on sand
Undrained triaxial tests on sand
Figure 1: Drained triaxial tests Results on loose Karlsruhe sand

(after Kolymbas and Wu 1990)
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Problem
The aim of this tutorial is to provide the reader with instructions for
modeling triaxial tests on sand in RS2. Triaxial tests are the most
common element tests performed on geomaterials in order to analyze
their mechanical behavior. This tutorial will begin by explaining the
procedure for using the experimental data to identify the material
properties and evaluate the constitutive model parameters. Following
this, the process of building the model in RS2, as well as incorporating the
loading conditions of the triaxial test will be described.
Kolymbas and Wu [1] performed a series of triaxial tests on a variety of
samples of granular materials; this included drained triaxial tests on
loose Karlsruhe sand. In Fundamentals of Plasticity in Geomechanics
[2], Pietruszczak presents the experimental results of undrained triaxial
tests on several different sands, including samples of very loose Banding
sand. Both references provide a good collection of experimental data on
the mechanical behavior of loose, medium and dense sand samples in
triaxial tests. This tutorial will provide the reader with instructions to
identify the material properties and constitutive model parameters from
the experimental data and applying them in numerical modelling of their
mechanical behavior in RS2.
Material Properties
The material properties for the sands used in the triaxial tests were not
provided in [1] and [2]. However, the experimental data can be used to
derive the key parameters. In the Softening/Hardening model in RS2
these parameters are the cohesion, friction angle, dilation angle and the
hardening parameter. The process involves plotting a failure line (in p-q
plane), using the failure states obtained from experimental data, to
calculate the friction angle and cohesion, and plotting the increasing
mobilized friction angle against the deviatoric stress to approximate the
hardening parameter A. The dilation angel or the zero dilation angle can
also be evaluated form the variation of volumetric strain versus the
mobilized friction angle.
Drained Triaxial Tests

The following section of tutorial will describe the process used to derive
the key material properties for the loose Karlsruhe sand from the
experimental data given in [1].
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The Elastic Properties (Elastic Modulus and Poissons Ratio)

The elastic modulus of geomaterials is usually dependent on the level of
stress. This option is available through nonlinear elastic models in RS2,
however for simplicity, we are using a constant elastic modulus for loose
Karlsruhe sand, which is averaged over the stress range in the
experiments in Figure 1. The elastic modulus can be identified form the
variation of with at the initial stages of the test where this variation
is linear (where usually q is less than 50% of its ultimate value).
The value of Elastic modulus for this sand is
70000
value of Poissons ratio for sand
0.35 was also chosen.
and a typical
The Failure Line (Fiction Angle and Cohesion)

The experimental data given in [1] includes plots of stress ratio versus
axial strain, as well as volumetric strain versus axial strain, for a range
of different confining stress values.
The failure states in terms of , are used to identify the strength of the
material (the convention is compression positive). The yield surface of the
deviatoric hardening mechanism of the Softening/Hardening model is
presented in equation 1.
0,
(1)
At failure the mobilized friction angle

reaches to its final value
Thus the failure line can be expressed as:
0,
(2)
Now by plotting the failure states in terms of ( , ) and finding the best
fit regression line to them one can find the strength characteristics of this
model. In Figure 2 a best-fit line was evaluated using Microsoft Excel and
the equation is shown below.
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Figure 2: Plot of the failure line from the triaxial tests

The equation of the failure line shown in Figure 2 is:
1.2381
19.315
Comparing equation 3 with the equation of the regression line and

considering that this is a triaxial test, the angle is equal to , we can
solve for the unknown parameters in the Mohr-Coulomb yield surface
equation:
Friction Angle
6 sin
3 sin
sin
1.2381
3
30.9
Cohesion
tan
19.315 tan
19.315
19.135 3 sin
6 cos
9.3
In above, the failure line was plotted using the stress states at failure
observed in triaxial test under different confining pressures. The
equation of the regression line was used to determine the friction angle
and the cohesion of the Karlsruhe sand.
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The Hardening Behavior

The other important parameter that needs to be evaluated is the
hardening parameter. The hardening parameter can be determined by
plotting of the tangent of mobilized friction angle versus the deviatoric
strain, and using the equation of the best fit curve to solve for the
required parameter.
The hardening rule for the deviatoric mechanism is:
tan
tan
(3)
Where is the mobilized friction angle and

is the failure friction angle
that was previously determined. In this tutorial, since the elastic strains
are negligible compared to the plastic strains, for the purpose of this
. Therefore, the plastic deviatoric
curve fitting, it is assumed that
strain is approximately equal to the total deviatoric strain.
In order to plot the hardening behavior the deviatoric strain is required.
The graph given in [1] gives the volumetric strain and the axial strain,
which can be used to solve for the deviatoric strain. The deviatoric strain
can be calculated using the following equation:
(4)
The second value needed to plot the hardening behavior is the tangent of
mobilized friction angle corresponding to each deviatoric strain value.
From the mean stress (p) and deviatoric stress (q) of each data point of
experimental results, M can be calculated using Equation 1 and the
values of cohesion and failure friction angle that have been previously
calculated. Next, the value of the mobilized friction angle at each point
can be calculated by using the definition of M in Equation 1.
sin
3
6
The tangent of friction angles will be used in the plot of hardening

behavior. The following figure shows a plot of the tangent of mobilized
friction angle versus the deviatoric strain for all of the different confining
pressure tests conducted.
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Figure 3: Hardening behavior for the triaxial tests
The hardening law is given in equation 3. The failure friction angle has
already been determined; therefore the only unknown parameter is A, the
hardening parameter. Equation 3 was plotted in Excel on the same plot
as the hardening behavior from the triaxial tests and the value of A was
varied until a best fit curve was obtained. The value of the hardening
parameter is typically in the range of 5-10% of the deviatoric strain at
failure. In this example, the value of the hardening parameter that
produced the best fit curve shown in figure 4 was determined to be
A=0.0075.
Figure 4: Hardening behavior for the triaxial tests with the best fit curve
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The Dilation/Zero-Dilation Angle

The last parameter to be determined is the Dilation or Zero-Dilation
angle. The behavior of loose sand shown in figure 1 does not show any
dilation and all samples show compaction while shearing. For that reason
using even a zero dilation angle would not be correct. In such cases it is
best to use a Zero-Dilation angle which is very close to the failure friction
angle. For example for this case the zero-dilation angle of
30 would
be adequate.
Undrained Triaxial Tests

The following section of the tutorial will detail the process used to
determine the key material properties for the Banding sand from the
experimental data given in [2]. This procedure is similar to that used for
the drained sand test; a (p-q) failure line was plotted to calculate the
friction angle and cohesion, and the tangential friction angle was plotted
against the deviatoric stress to approximate the hardening parameter.
The Failure Line (Fiction Angle and Cohesion)
The (p-q) plot for the Banding sand provided in [2] is shown in Figure 5.
The stress path clearly shows the static liquefaction of the sample.
As seen in this figure a section of the stress path for the p values of
roughly 0 kPa and 100 kPa is rather linear.
Figure 5: Graph of Deviatoric stress versus Mean Stress for the Banding
sand triaxial test.
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This linear segment represents the failure line. Therefore to identify the
ultimate cohesion and friction angle, a point on this failure line was
selected (p = 100 kPa and q = 125 kPa) as the state of stress at failure,
and plotted in p-q space. Since this is a very loose sand, it was assumed
that cohesion is zero and thus the failure line passes through the origin.
The failure line was created by drawing a line that passes through the
point and the origin. The failure line is shown in the following figure:
Figure 6: Deviatoric Stress versus Mean Stress plotted to show the

failure line for the Banding Sand triaxial test.
The equation of the failure line shown in Figure 6 is:
1.25
The same procedure used for the drained test was used to solve the
material properties in this example.
Friction Angle
6 sin
3 sin
sin
3
6
1.25
31.1
Cohesion
0
Thus, the peak friction angle for the Banding sand was determined to be
31.1. As previously mentioned, since the line passes through the origin
the cohesion is zero.
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The Hardening Behavior

Once again, a plot of tangential friction angle versus deviatoric strain
was created in order to calculate the hardening parameter. For simplicity
and without any significant loss of accuracy in the evaluation of the
hardening parameter, it was assumed that the elastic strains are
negligible compared to plastic strains zero and thus the plastic deviatoric
strain is approximately equal to the total deviatoric strain.
It is important to note that since the tests are undrained and water is not
allowed to drain from the sample, the volume of sample is constant and
thus volumetric strain is zero.
The lateral strain was calculated using Equation 4:
(4)
Following this, the deviatoric strain was calculated using Equation 9:
(9)
In order to determine the tangential friction angle, the value M was

calculated for each point. At each point, the mean effective stress (p) and
deviatoric stress (q) values that were previously calculated can be used to
determine the value of M using Equation 1, and the values of cohesion
and failure friction angle that have been previously calculated.
Finally, the mobilized friction angle at each point can be calculated from
the value of M. The tangent of the mobilized friction angle calculated
using this equation will be used to plot the hardening behavior.
sin
3
6
Figure 9: Hardening behavior for the triaxial test on the Banding sand
sample
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Figure 9 shows the hardening behavior for the single test on the Banding
sand sample.
Once again, the value of the hardening parameter (A) was varied in the
hardening equation (Equation 3) until a best-fit curve was obtained for
the data. A value of A = 0.0075 was determined to provide the best fit; the
curve is shown in the figure below.
Figure 10: Hardening behavior for the triaxial test on the Banding sand
sample along with the best fit curve.
The Dilation/Zero-Dilation Angle

To simulate the static liquefaction or a behavior close that the ZeroDilation angle option should be used and the value for this parameter
should be very close to the failure friction angle. For this case the zerodilation angle is chosen to be equal to the failure friction angle.
31.1
Summary of Material Properties

The following tables show the material properties determined for the
loose Karlsruhe sand and the Banding sand.
KarlsruheSand
ElasticModulus
70000kPa
PoissonsRatio
0.35
FailureFrictionAngle
30.9
Cohesion
9.3kPa
ZeroDilationAngle
30.0
HardeningParameter
0.0075
Table1:SummaryofMaterialPropertiesforthelooseKarlsruhesand.
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BandingSand
ElasticModulus
21000kPa
PoissonsRatio
0.35
FailureFrictionAngle
31.1
Cohesion
0kPa
ZeroDilationAngle
31.1
HardeningParameter
0.0075
Table2:SummaryofMaterialPropertiesfortheBandingsand.
Model
The following section of this tutorial will describe the process for
constructing a model in RS2 that will replicate the triaxial tests. This
process includes entering the model geometry and loading conditions
from the triaxial testing setup, as well as entering the correct material
properties for the sands that is being modeled.
Project Settings
Open the Project Settings dialog from the Analysis menu and select
the General tab. Select Axisymmetric for the analysis type.
Select the Stages tab. Change the number of stages to 51 as shown in the
following figure.
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Geometry
As previously mentioned, an axisymmetric analysis is being performed.
The RS2 model therefore consists of an axisymmetric cylinder with unit
height. This will appear as a 1m by 1m square in RS2.
Select: Boundaries Add External

1. Enter the coordinates (0,0) in the prompt line and hit enter to set
the first point.
2. Continue to define the remainder of the shape by entering the
coordinates (0,1), (1,1) and (1,0) in the prompt line
3. Hit enter to close the shape. This represents the axisymmetric
cylinder in RS2, as shown in the following figure.
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Mesh
Add the finite element mesh by selecting Mesh Setup from the Mesh
menu. In the mesh setup dialog, change the Element Type to 8 Noded
Quadrilaterals. Since this is only material test one element would be
enough for the simuations.
Click the Discretize button and then the Mesh button.
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Loading
Triaxial tests on sand are performed by applying a hydrostatic confining
pressure on the sample and then applying an axial load/displacement.
The confining stress can be modelled in RS2 by applying a constant field
stress with a constant distributed uniform load on the boundaries.
Select: Loading Field Stress

For these models in RS2 the horizontal stress and the vertical stress will
both be set equal to the confining stress, which represents the initial
hydrostatic conditions.
The following figure shows the Field Stress conditions entered for the
triaxial test on the loose Karlsruhe sand with a confining stress of 100
kPa; both the horizontal stress and vertical stress have been set at 100
kPa.
Select: Loading Distributed Loads Add Uniform Load

In addition to the field stress being applied, a uniform distributed load
will be applied to the surfaces of the axisymmetric cylinder. The
distributed load is also equal to the confining stress. This balances the
field stress such that the confining stress is constant throughout the
model, and ensures there will be no displacements in the initial stage of
the model before any axial load is applied.
The following figure shows the Distributed Load applied for the triaxial
test on the loose Karlsruhe sand; a confining stress of 100 kPa is being
used.
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This uniform load is applied to the top and right edges of the RS2 model
as these correspond to the surface of the axisymmetric cylinder.
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Boundary Conditions
In these models, the boundary conditions must be set in order to replicate
the triaxial testing conditions. Since this is an axisymmetric analysis, the
left edge of the model will be restrained in the X direction. The bottom
edge is restrained in the Y direction.
In order to produce the loading conditions from the triaxial testing,
incremental displacements will be applied. The total axial strain from
these tests can easily be converted to a displacement since the model has
a unit height; this displacement will then be divided over the 50 loading
stages and applied to the model incrementally.
Drained Triaxial Test
An incremental vertical displacement was applied to the model in the
drained triaxial test, and the right edge of the model was left as a free
surface. The maximum axial strain observed in the tests on the
Karlsruhe sand was 20%, which corresponds to a displacement of 0.2m
for a model with unit height. This displacement was divided evenly into
50 increments, so an incremental displacement of 0.004m was applied in
each stage.
Select: Displacements Selection Mode Pick by Boundary Nodes

This will ensure that the displacements can be correctly applied to the
boundary nodes. Now the incremental displacements can be applied.
Select: Displacements Set Displacement
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Next, click on the Stage Factor tab and set the stage factors as follows.
This corresponds to an incremental stage factor of 1/50 or 0.02 per stage.
Select the three nodes on the top surface of the model and hit enter to
apply these displacements. The following figure shows the first
displacement increment applied to the model.
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Undrained Triaxial Test

A similar procedure was used to apply the incremental displacements to
model of the drained triaxial test. However, an additional step is required
for the undrained test. Since the water is not allowed to escape in the
undrained test, and water is incompressible, no volume change occurs in
this test. Therefore, in order to maintain a constant volume in the RS2
model, a positive horizontal displacement equal to half of the negative
vertical displacement was applied to the right edge of the axisymmetric
model.
The total axial strain recorded in the test was 20%, corresponding to a
displacement of 0.2m in the negative Y direction. This was divided into
displacement increments that were applied over the 50 stages. The total
horizontal displacement was set at 0.1m in the Positive X direction,
which is one half of the axial (vertical) displacement. This displacement
was divided into increments as well.

Click on the nodes on the left side and middle of the top edge of the model
to set the displacements for the top surface. Enter the Nodal
Displacements as follows.
The displacement increments are not identical in all of the stages, as they
were in the drained triaxial test model. Instead, smaller increments have
been used in the early stages, while larger increments are used in the
later stages. Click on the Stage Factors button. The following figure
shows the stage factors used for the first 25 stages.
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We are now setting the displacements for the node at the top-right corner
of the model, so select the node and hit enter. This node will have both a
vertical and a horizontal displacement. Set the Nodal Displacements as
follows.
Click on the Stage Factors button. The stage factors used will be identical
to those used for the displacements of the top edge of the model.

We will now set the displacements for the final nodes on the right edge of
the model; these are the nodes in the middle and bottom corner of the
right edge. These nodes will only have horizontal displacements. Set the
Nodal Displacements as follows.
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Click on the Stage Factors button. Once again, we will be using the same
stage factors.
The following figure shows the first incremental displacement applied to
the Banding sand model.
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Materials
Select: Properties Define Materials

The material properties for the Karlsruhe sand will now be entered in the
RS2 model. In the elastic properties menu, set the Poissons Ratio equal
to 0.35 and the Youngs Modulus to 70000 kPa.
Set the Failure Criterion as Softening Hardening Model, and enter the
values for friction angle and cohesion that were calculated earlier in the
tutorial. The value of the tensile strength is not important for this model
and a typical value of 10 kPa was used.
Click on Model Properties, and select the Cone Property tab in the Model
Properties dialog. The hardening and dilation parameters will be entered
in this window. The hardening parameter (B=0.0075) determined earlier
in the tutorial is entered as the Hardening Property. Next, the zerodilation angle (30) is entered. The option for this parameter is the
Compaction Dilation.
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Select: Properties Define Materials

The material properties for the Banding sand are entered as follows.
Similar to the Karlsruhe sand, the value of the Poissons Ratio was set to
0.35. In addition, a trial error procedure was used to determine the
Youngs Modulus; once the other parameters had been entered, its value
was varied until the RS2 model data matched the experimental data.
Set the Failure Criterion as Softening Hardening Model, and enter the
values for friction angle and cohesion that were calculated earlier in the
tutorial. The value of the tensile strength was set to 0 kPa since the
cohesion is also zero.
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Click on Model Properties, and select the Cone Property tab in the Model
Properties dialog. The hardening and dilation parameters will be entered
in this window. The hardening parameter (B=0.0075) determined earlier
in the tutorial is entered as the Hardening Property. Next, the zerodilation angle (31.5) is entered with the Compaction Dilation option.
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Compute
Now that the material properties and loading conditions have been
entered, the results can now be computed. Before you analyze your
model, save this as a new file called TriaxialSandTest.fez
Select: File Save

Save the file as TriaxialSandTest.fez.
Select: Analysis Compute

The RS2 Compute engine will proceed in running the analysis. When
completed, you will be ready to view the results in Interpret.
Interpret
From Model, switch to the Interpret program.
Select: Analysis Interpret
Comparing the Results

Now that the results have been computed, it is possible to compare the
results from the RS2 model with the experimental data.
One of the graphs provided in [1] shows the Stress Ratio versus Axial
Strain curves for the experimental triaxial tests conducted on the loose
Karlsruhe sand. In order to produce a similar graph using the RS2 model
results, we must collect the data for Sigma 1, Sigma 3 and Axial Strain
data for each stage from RS2. For axial strain, we can use the Absolute
Vertical Displacement; the model has a unit height therefore the
displacement is equal to the axial strain.
First select Sigma 1 as the query
Select: Graph Graph Single Point vs. Stage.

Enter the coordinates (1,1) in the prompt line and hit enter. In the graph
query data dialog, select Query Data as the vertical axis and Stage
number as the horizontal axis. Select all stages to plot as shown in the
figure below.
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Click the Plot button and the following graph will appear.
Right click on the graph and click Copy Data, then you will be able to
paste the data in Microsoft Excel.
Repeat the steps above to obtain the data for Sigma 3 and Absolute
Vertical Displacement. We can then use Microsoft Excel to calculate the
Deviatoric Stress, by finding the difference between Sigma 1 and Sigma
3. As previously mentioned, since our model has a unit height, the
absolute vertical displacement is equal to the axial strain. Thus, we now
have the Deviatoric Stress and Axial Strain values for each stage.
In the figure below, the curves of Stress Ratio ( ) versus Axial Strain
from the RS2 model results at different confining stresses have been
plotted along with the experimental data, in order to compare the two
sets of results. As seen in the figure, the two sets of results are in close
agreement.
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Graph of Stress Ratio versus Axial Strain for the experimental data and
the RS2 model results for the Karlsruhe sand.
Graph of Volumetric Strain versus Axial Strain for the experimental

data and the RS2 model results for loose Karlsruhe sand.
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The same procedure can be used to compare the RS2 model results with
the experimental data for the undrained triaxial tests on the banding
sand. In this case, experimental data was provided in a graph of
deviatoric stress versus deviatoric strain.
Repeat the steps above to collect the values of Sigma 1, Sigma 3 and
Absolute Vertical Displacement for each stage. Once again, the deviatoric
stress can be calculated by finding the difference between Sigma 1 and
Sigma 3. As previously mentioned in the Material Properties section of
the tutorial, the volumetric strain for the undrained triaxial test is zero
and thus the deviatoric strain is equal to the axial strain, which as
previously mentioned is equal to the absolute vertical displacement for a
model with unit height.
Now that we have the RS2 model results for deviatoric stress and
deviatoric strain at each stage, we can compare the results with the
experimental data. The following figure compares the two sets of results;
once again they are in close agreement. There are some differences
between the two sets of data; this may be due to the fact that the RS2
model uses a constant value of Youngs modulus, while in reality the
value varies with stress.
180
160
140
DeviatoricStress(kPa)
120
100
P0=400kPaExperimental
80
P0=400kPaPhase2
60
40
20
0
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
400
450
EffectivePressure,p(kPa)
Graph of Effective Stress path, comparing the experimental data with

the RS2 model results for the Banding sand.
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Graph of Deviatoric Stress versus Deviatoric Strain, comparing the

experimental data with the RS2 model results for the Banding sand.
Conclusion
This aim of this tutorial has been to provide the reader with step by step
instructions for using RS2 to model triaxial tests on sand in both drained
and undrained conditions, beginning with deriving the material
properties for the sand, and subsequently modeling the loading conditions
and geometry of the triaxial test in RS2.
As shown in the RS2 verification file Drained and Undrained Triaxial
Tests on Sand, RS2 can be used to model triaxial tests on a number of
different sands. These include drained triaxial tests on dense and loose
Karlsruhe sand [1], loose Ottawa sand [3], dense and loose Hostun Sand
[4], as well as undrained triaxial tests on Banding sand and loose Reid
Bedford sand [2]. It is left as an exercise for the reader to attempt to build
these other models in RS2.
References
[1] D. Kolymbas and W. Wu (1990), Recent Results of Triaxial Tests with
Granular Materials, Powder Technology, 60, 99-119.
[2] S. Pietruszczak (2010), Fundamentals of Plasticity in Geomechanics,
Leiden, The Netherlands: CRC Press.
[3] K. Alshibli and S. Sture (2000), Shear Band Formation in Plane
Strain Experiments of Sand, Journal of Geotechnical and
Geoenvironmental Engineering, 126, 495-503.
[4] T. Schanz and P.A. Vermeer (1996), Angles of friction and dilatancy
of sand, Gotechnique, 46, 145-151.
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Tutorial Manual

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