G/G_=1-/(t /-0 * (8.4)
10)
where t = shear stress; = lim iting shear stress, and / and g
are fitting parameters. For sands, Mayne (1995) suggests typical
values of/ = 1 and g = 0.3.
Lee and Salgado (1999) have generalized Equation (8.4) for
three dimensional stress states and have assumed that the shear
modulus depends on the mean principal stress. They give the
following expression;
G / G ^ = 1 - f[ ( q - q ,) /( q ^ - q,)]‘ ( p 'l p \ )"' (8.5)
where qt = initia l deviator stress; q = deviator tress; qmax =
maximum deviator stress at failure; ns is a constant with a typical
value of 0.5.
The tangent shear modulus G, may be derived from the above
equation by differentiation, to give:
G , / G ^ = (G /G ma)2 (p '/ Py > / {I - / ( I - g)[(q - <7, ) / ^ - qt) Y )
(8.6)
Mayne (1995) demonstrates how the simple nonlinear rela­
tionship shown in Equation (8.4) can be used with simple elastic
solutions to predict the load-settlement behaviour of shallow
footings on sand and pile foundations a residual sandy soil. De­
spite the apparent success achieved by Mayne, there is still some
potential difficulty in expressing the secant shear modulus in
terms of stress level, in that the strain level for different founda­
tion types may be different, despite the fact that the stress level
may be similar. For this reason, it may be preferable to consider
the degradation relationship for shear modulus in terms of strain
level, rather than stress level.
It is possible to express the non-linearity of soil stiffness in
terms of strain, rather than stress level (for example, Tatsuoka
and Shibuya (1991); Michaelidis et a i, 1997; Atkinson, 2000).
Lehane and Fahey (2000) suggest the following relationship for
the secant Youngs modulus E (and also shear modulus G) of a
soil in terms of strain:
E / E ^ = 1/(1 + ( ( e - e „) / ( e r - e „) r ( / o r e > e t() (8.7)
where £ r a = very small strain value of Young’s modulus; e,( =
elastic lim it strain (typically 10 ~5 ); er and n are empirical pa­
rameters used to alter the shape of the stiffness - strain relation­
ship.
The relationship for tangent modulus may also be derived by
differentiation of the above expressions. Equation (8.6) w ill be
used subsequently in Section 3.4 to derive typical values of se­
cant shear modulus for various types of foundation on clay.
8.3 Deformation parameters —undrained and drained Young's
modulus
W hile the shear modulus is relevant to both undrained and
drained conditions, for drained conditions, consideration must
also be given to strains arising from volume changes. These are
usually described via a bulk modulus, which relates volumetric
stress and volumetric strain, or via a constrained modulus, which
describes the relationship between vertical stress and vertical
strain in a one-dimensional test. The theory of elasticity provides
the following relationships between the various parameters, for
an isotropic material:
E = 9G /Q + G /K ) (8.8)
E = 9G /[3 + G( 1 + v)/3£>(l - 2v)] (8.9)
where G = shear modulus; E = Young’s modulus; K = bulk
modulus; D = constrained modulus; v = Poisson’s ratio.
For the case of undrained loading of a saturated clay, the
above equations give the following familiar result for the
undrained Young’s modulus Eu:
2596
£„ = 3G (8.
The non-linearity o f Eu is reflected directly by the non-
linearity of the shear modulus G (Equation (8.4)).
For drained conditions, the drained Young’s modulus is given
by Equation (8.9), with v = v', the drained Poisson’s ratio o f the
soil. Typical values of v' range between 0.25 and 0.4. Also, the
constrained modulus D may be related to the compression ratio
C R ( = Cc/ (1+eo)) o f a soil as follows (for relatively small stress
increments):
D = 2.3a ICR (8.11)
where eg = initia l void ratio; = initia l vertical stress on soil.
Substitution of the above values into Equation (8.8) gives the
following result:
E ' = 9G /[3 + b(G l a V0') C R / 2.3 ] (8.12)
where the factor b ranges between about 0.55 and 0.78.
The non-linearity of the shear modulus G may be taken into
account via Equation (8.3), so that the drained modulus can be
expressed as:
9 G max( l - / ( T / T max) ^ )
E' = (8.13)
3 + b[Gnax/G 'vo^ - f ( r / r naxy ) 0 R / 2 . 3 )
Figure 8.3 plots the variation o f normalized drained modulus,
E'/Gmu, versus stress level for a typical case in which b = 0.62
(representing v' = 0.3), f - 1.0, g = 0.3 and Gma/<j,y0 = 500, and
various values of the compression ratio CR. Also shown in this
figure is the relationship for an ideal two-phase elastic soil, in
which the relationship between E' and Eu is given by equation E'
= 1 .5 £ „/(l+ v').
The following useful conclusions can be drawn from this fig­
ure:
1. The normalized undrained modulus is more sensitive to stress
level than the drained modulus.
2. The more compressible the soil, i.e., the larger the value of
CR, the smaller is the drained modulus ratio. For very com­
pressible soils, the drained modulus may be only 10% or less
of the undrained value, at the corresponding stress level.
3. As the compressibility decreases (CR decreases) the normal­
ized drained modulus becomes larger, but more sensitive to
the shear stress level.
Figure 8.3 demonstrates behaviour that is consistent with ex­
perience. For soft compressible clays, the ratio of the drained to
the undrained modulus is small, while for stiffer overconsoli­
dated clays, the ratio of the drained and undrained modulus is
more consistent with that derived from elasticity theory.
Many of the commonly used solutions for foundation defor­
mations are derived from elasticity theory and are expressed in
terms of the Young’s modulus of the soil. Equation (8.13) there­
fore provides a relatively simple means of estimating the drained
Young’s modulus of a soil to use in such solutions, and its varia­
tion with shear stress level, once the values of small strain shear
modulus Gnu and compression ratio CR are known. Since a
number of correlations exist for both G ^ and CR with other
more easily measurable soil characteristics, the opportunity also
exists to develop corresponding correlations for the drained and
undrained values of Young’s modulus.
8.4 Typical values o f secant modulus fo r undrained loading o f
foundations on clay
In the application of elasticity theory to a non-linear material
such as soil, a critical factor is the selection of an appropriate
modulus to represent the soil deformation behaviour over a range
of stress appropriate to the problem in hand. One of the difficul­
ties in expressing the secant shear modulus in terms of stress
level is that the strain level for different foundation types may be