Soil Uncertainty and Its Influence on Simulated G/G_max and Damping Behavior

In this paper, recently developed probabilistic elastoplasticity was applied in simulating cyclic behavior of clay. A simple von Mises elastic-perfectly plastic material model was used for simulation. Probabilistic soil parameters, elastic shear modulus (G_max) and undrained shear strength (s_u), needed for the simulation were obtained from correlations with the standard penetration test (SPT) N-value. It has been shown that the probabilistic approach to geo-material modeling captures some of the important aspects-the modulus reduction, material damping ratio, and modulus degradation-of cyclic behavior of clay reasonably well, even with the simple elastic-perfectly plastic material model.