A new yield and failure criterion for geomaterials

Abstract

This paper proposes a new isotropic yield and failure criterion for geomaterials under general stress conditions. The new criterion is a function of the three stress invariants and the paper shows the well known criteria by Matsuoka & Nakai (1974) and Lade & Duncan (1975) are included in the new formulation. In order to include different features characterising soil and rock behaviour, the obtained function is successively modified to account for tensile strength and curvature in meridian planes. The influence of each parameter is discussed and finally the comparison between the new criterion and some experimental data on soils and rocks is shown. Finally, the domain of the new criterion is analysed in order to show if the yield function takes negative values also outside the shown elastic domain.