The second moment of area

The second moment of area, also known as moment of inertia of plane area, area moment of inertia, or second area
moment, is a geometrical property of an area which reflects how its points are distributed with regard to an arbitrary
axis. The second moment of area is typically denoted with either an I for an axis that lies in the plane or with a J for
an axis perpendicular to the plane. Its unit of dimension is length to fourth power, L4.
In the field...

Yield Surfaces and Plastic Flow Rules in

Geomechanics
Fabio Bocchi | October 16, 2014
In order to ensure safe geotechnical building methods, specific applications require
certain foundations and structure reinforcements. Tests are quite expensive to carry
out, so simulation can be really useful and even essential. Many numerical models
have been developed to give a deep insight into soil behavior. Here, we introduce
the most widespread models for soils available in COMSOL Multiphysics and
analyze a tunnel excavation example.

Quick Note on Geotechnical Engineering

There seems to be a general trend when it comes to construction. Offshore
structures are constructed in deeper and deeper waters; buildings are constructed
increasingly close to each other; offshore wind turbines are developed in deep
waters far away from the coasts, which are likely to experience extreme loading
conditions. Therefore, in recent decades, geotechnical engineers have developed
numerical simulations to cope with this construction trend and ensure safe building
methods.

Paris Metro construction 03300288-3. Licensed under Public domain via Wikimedia
Commons.

Plasticity and Geomaterials

Materials for which strains or stresses are not released upon unloading are said to
behave plastically. Several materials behave in such a manner, including metals,
soils, rocks, and concrete, for example. These give rise to an elastic behavior up to a
certain level of stress, the yield stress, at which plastic deformation starts to occur.
The elastic-plastic behavior is path-dependent and the stress depends on the history
of deformation. Therefore, the plasticity models are usually written connecting the
rates of stress, rather than stress, and the plastic strain. The most widespread and
well-known plasticity model throughout the industry is based on the von Mises yield

surface for which plastic flow is not altered by pressure. Therefore, the yield
condition and the plastic flow are only based on the deviatoric part of the stress
tensor.
However, this model is no longer valid for soil materials since frictional and dilatation
effects need to be taken into account. Lets see how this can be worked out and
briefly explain the different soil plasticity models available in the COMSOL
Multiphysics simulation software.

Plasticity of Soils and Rocks

For materials such as soils and rocks, the frictional and dilatational effects cannot be
neglected. This whole class of materials is well known to be sensitive to pressure,
leading to different tensile and compressive behaviors. The von Mises model
presented above is thus not suitable for these types of materials. Instead, yield
functions have been worked out to take into account the behavior of frictional
materials.
Lets illustrate the frictional behavior and plastic flow for these materials by
considering the block shown here:

The block is loaded as shown by a normal load

and a tangential load
.
Assuming that the block rests on a surface with a coefficient of static friction

according to Coulombs law, the maximum force that the block can withstand before
sliding is given by
. Therefore, the onset of sliding occurs when the
following condition is reached:
(1)
The direction of sliding is horizontal. For tangential loads such as
will not slide, but as soon as

, the block

, the block will slide in the direction of the

applied load
. The Mohr-Coulomb criterion the first soil plasticity model ever
developed is a generalization of this approach to continuous materials and a
multiaxial state of stress. It is defined such that yielding and even rupture occur
when a critical condition that combines the shear stress and the mean normal stress
is reached on any plane. This condition is stated as below:
(2)
Here,

is the shear stress,

is the normal stress,

is the cohesion representing the

shear strength under zero normal stress, and

is the coefficient of internal
friction coming from the well-known Coulomb model of friction. This equation
represents two straight lines in the Mohr plane. A state of stress is safe if all three
Mohrs circles lie between those lines, while it is a critical state (onset of yielding) if
one of the three circles is tangent to the lines.

Mohr-Coulomb yield behavior. The Mohr circles are based on the principal stresses

,
, and
. As you can see, one of the circles is tangential to the yield surface,
and so the onset of yielding is occurring.
According to the figure above, the stress state is given by
and
. The yield criterion and Equation 2 can
therefore be re-written in a generalized form as follows:
(3)
It can even be seen as a particular case of a more general family of criteria based on
Coulomb friction and written by equations based on invariants of the stress tensor:
(4)

Representation of the Mohr-Coulomb yield function.

The Mohr-Coulomb criterion defines a hexagonal pyramid in the space of principal

stresses, which makes it straightforward for this criterion to be treated analytically.
But, the constitutive equations are difficult to handle from a numerical point of view
because of the sharp corners (for instance, the normal of this yield surface is
undefined at the corners).
In order to avoid the issue associated with the sharp corners, another yield criterion
of this family, the Drucker-Prager yield criterion, has been developed by modifying
the von Mises yield criterion to take into account the Coulomb friction, i.e.,
incorporate a hydrostatic pressure dependency:
(5)
This represents a smooth circular cone in the plane of principal stress, rather than a
hexagonal pyramid. If the coefficients and are chosen such that they match the
coefficients in the Mohr-Coulomb criterion, as follows:
(6)

the Drucker-Prager yield surface passes through the inner or outer apexes of the
Mohr-Coulomb pyramid, depending on whether the symbol
is positive or
negative. The plastic flow direction is taken from the so-called plastic potential,
which can be either the same, associative plasticity, or different, non-associative
plasticity, than the onset of yielding (the yield function). Many different nonassociative flow rules can be developed.
Using an associative law for the Drucker-Prager model leads the volumetric plastic
flow to be nonzero. Therefore, there is a change in volume under compression.
However, this is contradictory to the behavior of many soil materials, particularly
granular materials. Instead, a non-associative flow rule can be used such that the
plastic behavior is isochoric (volume preserving) a much better reflection of the
plastic behavior of granular materials.

Representation of the Drucker-Prager yield function.

Non-Associative Law for Soil Plasticity in COMSOL Multiphysics

Next, I will show you how to use a non-associative law for soil plasticity in COMSOL
Multiphysics. Non-associative plastic laws can be used regardless of the plasticity
model used in the software.
If youre using the Mohr-Coulomb model, there are basically two different
approaches to handling non-associative plasticity. The plastic potential can either be
taken from the Drucker-Prager model or be the same as the Mohr-Coulomb yield
function but with a different slope with respect to the hydrostatic axis, i.e., the angle
of friction is replaced by the dilatation angle (see screenshot below).
Moreover, when using the Drucker-Prager matched to a Mohr-Coulomb criterion, it is
easy to adapt the dilatation angle to match with the non-associative law that you

want to use. For instance, the non-associative law presented above can be worked
out by taking the dilatation angle null.
Last but not least, a useful feature called elliptic cap has been developed to avoid
unphysical behavior of the material beyond a certain level of pressure. Indeed, reallife material cannot withstand infinite pressure and still deform elastically. Therefore,
to cope with this, we can use the elliptic cap feature available in COMSOL
Multiphysics.

Soil Plasticity feature settings window.

Lets try to put into practice everything weve learned so far by analyzing the
example of a tunnel excavation. This will also be an opportunity to figure out what
the effects of the different features we mentioned above are.

Example of a Tunnel Excavation

The simulation of a tunnel excavation process is especially important in predicting
the necessary reinforcements that the workers need to use to avoid the collapse of
the construction.
The following model aims to simulate the soil behavior during a tunnel excavation.
The surface settlement (i.e., the vertical displacement along the free ground surface)
and the plastic region are computed and compared between the different soil models

used to carry out this simulation. The geometry well use is presented in the figure
below. To make our model realistic, infinite elements have been used to enlarge the
soil domain, while keeping the computational domain small enough to get the
solution in a relatively short time.

The geometry consists of a soil layer that is 100 meters deep and 100 meters wide
plus 20 meters of infinite elements. A tunnel 10 meters in diameter is placed 10
meters away from the symmetry axis and 20 meters below the surface.
First of all, we need to add the in-situ stresses in the soil before the excavation of the
tunnel. Then, we can compute the elastoplastic behavior once the soil corresponding

to the tunnel is removed. The in-situ stresses must be incorporated in this second
step. This is fairly straightforward to set up in COMSOL Multiphysics.
We can begin by adding a stationary step where the in-situ stresses will be
computed. Then, in a second step but still within the same study, we add a soil
plasticity feature. Finally, we compute the solution. In order to get the pre-stresses
incorporated into the second step, we should add an Initial Stress and Strain feature
under the Solid Mechanics interface, as shown below.

Initial Stress and Strain feature used to incorporate the in-situ stresses from the first
step as initial stresses for the second step, during which excavation occurs. The
variables solid.sx, solid.sxy, etc. are the x-components of the stress tensor, the xycomponents of the stress tensor, etc.
The first plot shows the in-situ stresses computed from the first step. These stresses
result from the gravity load.

The von Mises stress in the soil before the excavation of the tunnel.
The second plot shows the stress distribution after excavating the tunnel. In-situ
stresses are taken from the first step. Note, as expected, the increase in the von
Mises stress around the tunnel as well as the deformation of the tunnel shape.

The von Mises stress in the soil after excavation of the tunnel.
As mentioned previously, while removing the tunnel domain, a plasticity feature is
added and the soil experiences a plastic behavior. This is depicted in the figure
below of a Drucker-Prager model with associative plastic flow. The plastic region is
concentrated around the near surroundings of the tunnel. The analysis of this region
is quite important in gaining insight into how the soil is more likely to deform.
Therefore, it allows us to handle the necessary reinforcements in order to avoid
collapse and get the desired tunnel shape.

Plastic region after excavating the tunnel.

This tunnel excavation simulation has been carried out in four different cases in
order to compare the different soil models presented in the previous section as well
as understand the influence of the cohesion on the soils behavior. The results are
shown by taking the surface settlement as the criterion.
Below, we have a 1D plot from which we can observe the following relationship: The
lower the cohesion, the greater the deformation. We can also note that the MohrCoulomb model tends to, somehow, make the soil stiffer than the Drucker-Prager
model. The non-associative law with a null dilatation angle prevents the soil from
dilating under compression and so the surface settlement becomes greater.

Surface settlement comparison between different plasticity models and material

properties.

Further Reading
There are also a couple of other plasticity models for soil, rocks, and concrete
available in COMSOL Multiphysics. Please check out the links below to get further
information about geotechnical simulations and the Geomechanics Module of
COMSOL Multiphysics.

Geomechanics Module

Geomechanics Module example models

Also, be sure to watch the video on how to build a model of an excavation:

Deep Excavation Simulation Tutorial

of structural engineering, the second moment of area of the cross-section of a beam is an important property used in
the calculation of the beam's deflection and the calculation of stress caused by a moment applied to the beam.