619

Quasi-static undrained expansion of a cylindrical cavity in clay in

the presence of shaft friction and anisotropic initial stresses
C. Sagaseta
a,
, G.T. Houlsby
b
, H.J. Burd
b
a
Department of Materials and Ground Engineering, University of Cantabria, Av. de Los Castros, s/n, 39005 Santander, Spain
b
Department of Engineering Science, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
Abstract
Solutions for cylindrical cavity expansion in an innite incompressible medium are presented. The solutions account for
large strain in both the plastic and elastic regions. They account also for the inuence of an axial shear stress at the surface
of the cavity, and also for the possibility of unequal vertical and horizontal stresses. The solutions are presented principally
in closed-form, although they make some use of a series solution and of integrals which must be evaluated numerically.
The solutions have application to the determination of the stresses around axially loaded piles and around in-situ testing
devices such as penetrometers.
Keywords: Cavity expansion; Elastoplastic; Incompressible material; Analytical solution; Von Mises; Large strains;
Eulerian formulation
1. Introduction
In the paper we present an analytical solution for the
quasi-static expansion of a cylindrical cavity in an incom-
pressible elastoplastic soil. There are many other published
solutions of the problem, either in closed form (for instance
[1]) or numerically [2,4]. The novelty here lies in the fact
that we account for the possibility of (a) shaft friction
in the axial direction, and (b) in-situ horizontal stress not
necessarily equal to in-situ vertical stress.
The soil is treated as incompressible elasticperfect
plastic, with the Von Mises yield condition. The proper-
ties are dened by the parameters: G (incompressibility
requires that Poissons ratio = 0.5), and s
u
= (
1

3
)/2
in triaxial conditions (
2
=
3
). The shear modulus may be
expressed by dening the rigidity index, I
r
=G/s
u
.
The cavity is vertical, and its radius, a, expands steadily,
starting from zero. The expansion of a cavity with -
nite initial radius a
0
can be recovered from the solutions
given below, simply by tracking the stresses at radius
r =
_
a
2
0
a
2
. As stated above, the analysis concentrates on
the inuence of the following factors, not considered in the
previous solutions:

Corresponding author. Tel.: +34 (942) 201813; Fax: +34 (942)

201821; E-mail: sagasetac@unican.es
The action of a longitudinal uniform shear traction at
the cavity wall,
a
. This is relevant for driven piles and
for cone pressuremeters.
An anisotropic, but uniform, initial state of stresses
(
v0
=
h0
).
Large strains in both the plastic and elastic zones (usu-
ally, small strains are assumed in the elastic region).
The rst two points imply the presence of shear stresses,
additional to the effect of the cavity expansion. This has an
inuence on the extent of the plastic zone.
2. Problem formulation
The problem is formulated in cylindrical coordinates
(r, , z). The kinematic description of the motion, taking the
cavity radius, a, as the time variable, is fully dened by the
conditions of axial symmetry, the innite length of cylinder
and soil incompressibility:
r =
_
r
2
0
+a
2
_
1/2
=
0
z = z
0
+w(r, a)
(1)
The cavity axis, OZ, is not a principal direction, so the
deformation is not strictly one of plane strain. However, the
condition remains that all the variables are constant with z,
and that the axial strain rate is zero.
2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Computational Fluid and Solid Mechanics 2003
K.J. Bathe (Editor)
620 C. Sagaseta et al. / Second MIT Conference on Computational Fluid and Solid Mechanics
The components of the strain rate tensor are:

rr
=
v
r
r
=

r
_
r
a
_
=
a
r
2

=
v
r
r
=
1
r

_
r
a
_
=
a
r
2

zz
=
v
z
z
=

z
_
z
a
_
=0

rz
=
_
v
z
r
+
v
r
z
_
=

r
_
z
a
_

z
_
r
a
_
=

a
_
z
r
_
=

a
_
w
r
_
(2)
where (v
r
=r/a; v

=0; v
z
=z/a) are the soil veloci-
ties.
The strain rates are related to the material derivatives of
the stress through the elasticplastic constitutive equations:

i j
=
e
i j
+
p
i j
=C
i j kl

d
kl
da
+
f

i j
(3)
where f =0 is the Von Mises yield condition:
f =(
rr

)
2
+(

zz
)
2
+(
zz

rr
)
2
+6
2
rz
8s
2
u
(4)
From dimensional analysis, the stresses must depend
on the radial coordinate r only through the ratio =
a/r. Hence, the material derivatives of the stresses can be
expressed in terms of the spatial radial derivative as:
d
i j
da
=

i j
r

r
a
+

i j
a
=
_
a
r

r
a
_

i j
r
(5)
The equilibrium equations are:

r
r
+

r
=0

rz
r
+

rz
r
=0
(6)
We assume that the shear stress at the inner boundary is
constant, so that the boundary conditions are:
for r =a :
rz
=
a
for r =:
r
=

=
h0
;
z
=
v0
;
rz
=0
(7)
3. Solution procedure
The stresses are decomposed into their isotropic ( p) and
deviatoric (s
i j
) parts:

i j
= p
i j
+s
i j
(8)
where
i j
is the Kronecker delta (unit tensor). In the plastic
zone, the following variables are used, generalized from
Lodes parameters:
s
rr
=
4
3
s
u
cos sin
_
+

6
_
s

=
4
3
s
u
cos sin
_

6
_
s
zz
=
4
3
s
u
cos cos
s
rz
=
2

3
s
u
sin
(9)
The equations for stresses and strains in the vertical and
horizontal directions are only partially coupled. The veloci-
ties and strain rates in any horizontal plane, (v
r
, v

,
rr
,

)
are dened from Eqs. (1) and (2). On the other hand, the
corresponding shear stress
rz
is fully dened by the second
equilibrium Eq. (6), both in the elastic and plastic zones.
This decoupling allows a stepped solution. First, the
shear stress,
rz
, is obtained from the second equilibrium
Eq. (6). Then, the system is integrated for the normal
stresses, starting from the innite boundary, and assuming
elastic behavior, until the condition f =0 is reached. This
determines the position of the elasticplastic boundary,
=
R
. Then, the stresses and strain rates are integrated in
the plastic zone, and the normal pressure at the cavity wall
is obtained.
4. Results
In the presentation of results, use is made of the follow-
ing non-dimensional parameters:
, shaft shear factor (0 1):

rz(r=a)
=
a
=
2

3
s
u
(10)

0
, initial stress ratio:

0
=

v0

h0
2 s
u
(11)
4.1. Stresses in the elastic zone
We express the stresses in the form:

rr
= G () +
h0

= G
_
() +2ln(1
2
)
_
+
h0

zz
= G
_
() +ln(1
2
)
_
+
v0

rz
=
a

(12)
where the function () can be expressed as a power
series:
() =

_
1
n
2

2n
_
=
2
+
1
4

4
+
1
9

6
+. . . (13)
Note that this solution differs very slightly from the
conventional solution in the elastic region in which small
strains are assumed.
C. Sagaseta et al. / Second MIT Conference on Computational Fluid and Solid Mechanics 621
4.2. Elasticplastic boundary ( =
R
)
The position of the boundary is given by:
ln
_
1
2
R
_
=
2

1
I
r

_
1
2
0

2
R
(14)
For =0 this reduces to:

2
R
=1exp
_

1
I
r

_
1
2
0
_
(15)
4.3. Stresses in the plastic zone
Deviatoric stresses:
The deviatoric stresses may be expressed by the follow-
ing functions which should be substituted into Eq. (9):
sin =
1+sin
cos
=
1+sin
R
cos
R

_
cos +cos
a
cos
R
+cos
a

cos
R
cos
a
cos cos
a
_

3
2
Ir
1
cos a
(16)
For =0 these reduce to:
=0
1+sin
cos
=
1+sin
R
cos
R

_
1
2
R
1
2
_

3
2
Ir
(17)
and for =1:
sin =
1+sin
cos
=
1+sin
R
cos
R
exp
_

3 I
r
_
1
cos
R

1
cos
__
(17

)
Isotropic pressure:
The mean stress is expressed as:
p = p
R

4
3
s
u

_
cos sin
_
+

6
_
cos
R
sin
_

R
+

6
__
+
4

3
s
u

R
1

cos sin d
(18)
In all the expressions, the subscripts R and a mean the
values at the elasticplastic boundary ( =
R
) and at the
cavity wall ( = 1), respectively. The integral in Eq. (18)
needs to be evaluated numerically as a closed-form integra-
tion is not available.
Wall pressure:
The pressure at the cavity wall,
a
, is the value of
rr
for = 1. For the case of isotropic initial stresses (
0
=0)
this can be obtained as a closed form expression:

a
=
h0
+G (
R
) +
4

3
s
u

_
_
1
2

_
1
2

2
R
ln
R
ln
1+

1
2
1+
_
1
2

2
R
_
(19)
which, in the absence of shaft friction ( =0) reduces to:

a
=
h0
+G (
R
)
4

3
s
u
ln
R
Expanding
R
(15) and (13) into power series and taking
only their rst term, leads to:

2
R

=
2

1
I
r

=
h0
+
2

3
s
u

_
1+ln

3
2
I
r
_
(20)
which coincides with the existing solutions for small strains
in the elastic region.
4.4. Velocities and strain rates
The velocities and strain rates in the horizontal plane
(v
r
, v

,
rr
,

) are dened from Eqs. (1) and (2). The ver-

tical velocity, v
z
, becomes innite, due to a logarithmic
term which necessarily appears in two-dimensional elastic-
ity problems containing resultant forces [3]. This is usually
overcome by assuming that the displacements vanish at
some arbitrary distance, such as the magical radius used
by Randolph and Wroth [4].
The velocity v
z
and the shear strain rate,
rz
, are given
by:
v
z
=
w
a

rz
=

a
_
w
r
_ (21)
with:
w =w
e
+w
p
w
e
(elastic) =
a
a
I
r
_
ln
r
m
r

1
6
_

2
m
_
_
w
p
(plastic)
_

_
=0 if <
R
=
r=r
_
r=R
a=ar
_
a=0

p
rz
da dr if
R
(22)

p
rz
=
1
I
r

2
a
2
_
1
2
0
_
3/2
_
r
2
a
2
_
r
3
_
r
2

2
a
2
_
1
2
0
__
+8
a
2
_
1
2
0
_
1/2
sin
r
2
_
r
2

2
a
2
_
1
2
0
__
1/2
In the above expressions, r
m
(
m
= a/r
m
) is a magical
radius (in theory, r
m
, but in practice it can be taken
as some appropriate multiple of the axial length over which
622 C. Sagaseta et al. / Second MIT Conference on Computational Fluid and Solid Mechanics
the cavity expansion occurs). The integration for w
p
must
be performed numerically. The limit a
r
is the value of the
cavity radius a for which the plastic zone reaches r, the
point of calculation of w
p
, dened by the condition:
a
2
r
r
2
=
2
r
=1exp
_

1
I
r
_
_
1
2
0
__
1
2

2
r
_
_
(23)
Acknowledgements
The main part of the work presented herein was per-
formed during the visit of the rst author to the University
of Oxford, partially sponsored by a BritishSpanish Joint
Research project.
References
[1] Gibson RE, Anderson WF. In situ measurement of soil
properties with the pressuremeter. Civil Eng Pub Works Rev
1978;56:615618.
[2] Randolph MF, Wroth CP. An analysis of the deformation of
vertically loaded piles. J Geotech Eng Div ASCE 1978;104
(GT12):14651488.
[3] Strack OE. Analytic Solutions of Elastic Tunneling Problems.
Ph.D. Thesis, Delft University of Technology, Delft Univer-
sity Press, 2002.
[4] Yu HS, Houlsby, GT. Finite cavity expansion in dilatant
soils: loading analysis. Gotechnique 1991;41(2):173183.