An improved dynamic hysteretic model for soils

A dynamic hysteretic constitutive model for soil dynamics, Ramberg-Osgood model, is introduced and improved in the paper. Since the model is inherently 1D and is assumed to apply to shear components only, other components of the deviatoric stress and strain and their relations in 3D case could not be fully described. Two parameters, the equivalent shear stress and the equivalent shear strain, are defined to reasonably establish relations between each of stress and strain components respectively. The constitutive equations of the initial Ramberg-Osgood model are extended to generalize the theory into multidimensional cases. Difficulties of the definition of load reversal in 3D are also addressed and solved. The improved constitutive model for soil dynamics is verified by comparisons with different soil dynamic testing data covering both sands and clays. Results show that the dynamic nonlinear hysteretic behaviors of soils can be well predicted with the improved constitutive model.