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Equivalent interface properties to model soil-facing interactions with zero-

thickness and continuum element methodologies

Conference Paper · November 2015

DOI: 10.3233/978-1-61499-603-3-1065

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From Fundamentals to Applications in Geotechnics 1065
D. Manzanal and A.O. Sfriso (Eds.)
IOS Press, 2015
© 2015 The authors and IOS Press. All rights reserved.
doi:10.3233/978-1-61499-603-3-1065

Equivalent interface properties to model

soil-facing interactions with zero-thickness
and continuum element methodologies
Ivan P. DAMIANS a,1, Yan YU b, Antonio LLORET a, Richard J. BATHURST b and
Alejandro JOSA a
a
Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya · BarcelonaTech, Barcelona, Spain
b
Royal Military College of Canada, Kingston (Ontario), Canada

Abstract. Soil-facing mechanical interactions play an important role in the

behavior of earth retaining walls. Generally, numerical analysis of earth retaining
structures requires the use of interface elements between dissimilar component
materials to model soil-structure interactions and to capture the transfer of normal
and shear stresses through these discontinuities. In the finite element method
PLAXIS software program, soil-structure interactions can be modelled using
“zero-thickness” interface elements between the soil and structural components.
These elements use a strength/stiffness reduction factor that is applied to the soil
adjacent to the interface. However, in some numerical codes where the zero-
thickness elements (or other similar special interface elements) are not provided,
the use of continuum elements to model soil-structure interactions is the only
option. The continuum element approach allows more control of the interface
features (i.e., material strength and stiffness properties) as well as the element sizes
and shapes at the interfaces. This paper proposes parameter values for zero-
thickness elements that will give the same numerical outcomes as those using
continuum elements in PLAXIS. The numerical results show good agreement for
the computed loads transferred from soil to structure using both methods (i.e.,
zero-thickness elements and continuum elements at interfaces).

Keywords. Soil-structure interaction, finite element method, interfaces, zero-

thickness elements, continuum elements, PLAXIS.

Introduction

Earth retaining walls are common structures in civil engineering. The interaction
between the backfill soil and facing component strongly affects their performance. The
numerical modelling of earth retaining structures requires the use of interface
boundaries between the dissimilar materials to simulate the discontinuity and transfer
of normal and shear stresses from the soil to the facing component. Numerical software
programs generally have interface models to simulate soil-structure interactions [1,2]
using zero-thickness interface elements [3,4]. These programs give similar numerical
outcomes of normal and shear stresses at the interfaces between the soil and structures
[5]. However, in some software packages neither zero-thickness interface models nor
other similar special interface models are available. Thus the use of continuum

1
Corresponding author.
1066 I.P. Damians et al. / Equivalent Interface Properties to Model Soil-Facing Interactions

elements at the interfaces between the soil and structural components [6] is the only
option to numerically examine soil-structure interactions.
The objectives of this paper are: 1) examine the load transfer between the soil and
the facing component within a small concrete earth retaining wall segment using both
zero-thickness elements and continuum elements at the interfaces in a finite element
program [7]; and, 2) present numerical model details for equivalent interface property
values using the two interface modelling methods. The paper shows that the two
interface modelling approaches can give very similar results using equivalent interface
property values, and demonstrates the influence of choice of numerical mesh size on
the numerical outcomes when continuum elements are used at the interfaces.

1. Interface modelling

1.1. Interfaces with zero-thickness elements

The interfaces in PLAXIS are generally modeled using zero-thickness elements. These
interfaces have properties of friction angle (i), cohesion (ci), dilatancy angle (i), shear
modulus (Gi), Poisson’s ratio (with a fixed value of vi = 0.45), and oedometer modulus
(Eoed,i) [7]. The values of interface properties in PLAXIS can be set directly by using a
strength/stiffness reduction factor (Ri  1.0). The the default value is Ri = 1.0 represents
a fully bonded interface. This factor is applied to the properties of the adjacent soil as
follows:

ci Ri csoil (1)

Ii tan 1 ( Ri tan I soil ) (2)

­0 Ri  1.0
\i ® (3)
¯\ soil Ri 1.0

Gi Ri 2 Gsoil (4)

1 Q i
E oed , i 2 Gi (5)
1  2Q i

where: csoil is the soil cohesion; soil is the soil friction angle; soil is the soil dilatancy
angle, and; Gsoil is the soil shear modulus.

1.2. Interfaces with continuum elements

In PLAXIS, the interfaces with zero-thickness elements are also related to an interface
virtual thickness (ti) when calculating the interface element stiffness matrix. This
interface virtual thickness has direct effect on the magnitude of normal and shear
stresses transferred between the soil and structures. The virtual thickness of zero-
thickness interfaces is a function of a virtual thickness factor and the average element
size of the finite element mesh (the exact value of ti can be found in the OUTPUT
program  a post-processor in PLAXIS). To model an interface with continuum
elements, a real interface zone between the dissimilar materials with the thickness
 I.P. Damians et al. / Equivalent Interface Properties to Model Soil-Facing Interactions 1067

equal to the virtual thickness from th e zero-thickness elements is generated (Figure 1).
The material properties of this zone are also taken to be the same as those from the
zero-thickness elements (Figure 1). For cases where different finite eleme nt meshes
(with different average element sizes ) are considered, the virtual thickness facctor can be
slightly adjusted to keep the same int erface virtual thickness.

Figure 1. Interface modelling approach es with zero-thickness elements and continuum ele ments.

2. Problem definition

A small concrete earth retaining st ructure segment was considered in thiis paper to
examine the load transfer from the bbackfill soil to the adjacent facing struc ture using
both zero-thickness elements and con tinuum elements with the same interfac e property
values (Figure 2). The concrete faci ng was 0.5 m thick and 1.5 m high. Th e retained
backfill soil was 2.5 m long and 1.5 m high. Both the soil and concrete fa cing were
discretized using 15-node elements. The left side of the concrete facing annd the right
side of the backfill soil were fixed in x-direction and free in y-direction. The bottom of
both the concrete facing and backfiill soil was fixed in y-direction only. A uniformly
distributed surcharge load was appllied to the top surface of the backfill so il at three
different magnitudes (q = 10, 50 and 100 kPa).
Figure 2 shows three differen t finite element meshes (i.e., coarse, fine and
optimized) that were generated to e xamine the effect of element size at thhe interface
zone on the load transfer between the soil and facing structure. Among t hese three
meshes, the coarse mesh (Figure 2a) had the highest element aspect ratio with in the real
interface zone, the optimized mesh ((Figure 2c) had the lowest element aspe ct ratio in
the region where the analysis is focu sed (and fewer total number of element s), and the
element aspect ratio of the fine mes h (Figure 2b) was between that if the ccoarse and
optimized meshes. When zero-thick ness elements were used at the interfac e between
the soil and facing, the interface virt ual thickness was 18 mm. When using continuum
elements to simulate the soil-facin g interaction, an 18 mm-thick real zone was
modelled.
The soil was modelled as linear elastic with Mohr-Coulomb failure crit erion. The
parameter values for the backfill sooil are shown in Table 1. The concrete f acing was
modelled as linear elastic with elastic modulus of 32 GPa, Poisson’s ratio off 0.15 and a
unit weight of 25 kN/m / 3. The inter face strength and stiffness can be verry different
depending on the interacting mate rials [8]. Thus, five diff f erent strengtth/stiffness
1068 I.P. Damians et al. / Equivalent Interface Properties to Model Soil-Facing Interactions

reduction factors (Ri = 0.3, 0.45, 0.6 , 0.8 and 1.0) were considered; the corr esponding
interface property values are shown i n Table 2.

a) Coarse mesh: b) Fine mesh:

c ) Optimized mesh:

Figure 2. Three different finite element mes hes for the same soil-structure interaction example : (a) coarse
mesh, (b) fine mesh, and (c) optimized m esh with the same interface virtual thickness of ti = 18 mm.

Table 1. Soil properties.

Soil parameters Value Units
Unit weight, soil 18.0 kN/m3
Cohesion, csoil 1.0 kPa
Friction angle, soil 44.0 degrees
Dilatancy angle, soil 14.0 degrees
Elastic modulus, Esoil 5.0 MPa
Poisson’s ratio, soil 0.3 -
Strength/stiffness reduction factor, Ri 0.3, 0.45, 0.6, 0.8 and 1.0 -

Table 2. Interface properties.

S trength/stiffness reduction factor, Ri
Parameters Units
0.3 0.4 5 0.6 0.8 1.0
Cohesion, ci 0.3 0.4 5 0.6 0.8 1.0 kPa
Friction angle, i 16.2 23 .5 30.1 37.7 44.0 degrees
Shear modulus, Gi 0.17 0.3 9 0.69 1.23 1.92 MPa
Oedometer modulus, Eoed,i 1.9 4.3 7.6 13.5 21.1 MPa

3. Results

3.1. Effect of finite element mesh

Figure 3 shows the normal and shear stresses acting at the interface between the facing
and backfill soil with the three d ifferent meshes and using the strengt h/stiffness
reduction factor of Ri = 0.8 wherre both zero-thickness elements and continuum
 I.P. Damians et al. / Equivalent Interface Properties to Model Soil-Facing Interactions 1069

elements are considered. The use of Ri = 0.8 results in an interface friction angle of
about 38º, which is similar to the measured friction angle between smooth-concrete and
sand [8,9].
The numerical modelling (Figure 3) showed that for the cases examined with zero-
thickness elements, the finite element mesh had a minor effect on the normal and shear
stresses at the interface between the soil and facing. However, when using continuum
elements both interface normal and shear stresses fluctuated once soil plastic flow
occurred for all three meshes. The results also showed that the optimized mesh with the
lowest interface continuum element aspect ratio experienced the smallest stress
fluctuation amplitudes.

a) 1.5
Elevation (m)

1.0

q = 10 kPa

0.5 q= q = 50 kPa
10 kPa q= q = 100 kPa
50 kPa
q = 100 kPa
0.0
b) 1.5
Elevation (m)

1.0

q=
10 kPa
0.5 q = 50 kPa
q= q = 100 kPa
10 kPa
q = 50 kPa
q = 100 kPa
0.0
c) 1.5

q = 100 kPa
q = 100 kPa
Elevation (m)

1.0 (pl.r.) (el.r.)

(plastic (pl.r.) q=
(el.r.)
region) 50 kPa
(pl.r.) (pl.r.)
q= (el.r.) (pl.r.)
0.5 (el.r.)
10 kPa (el.r.)
q=
10 kPa (elastic
continuum elements
q = 50 kPa region)
zero thickness
0.0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 0 10 20 30 40

Normal stress (kPa) Shear stress (kPa)

Figure 3. Effect of the finite element mesh on the normal and shear stresses at the interface between the
facing structure and backfill soil: (a) coarse mesh, (b) fine mesh, and (c) optimized mesh with Ri = 0.8.

The total horizontal and vertical forces acing at the interface are shown in Tables 3
and 4, respectively. Both total horizontal and vertical forces using zero-thickness
elements are in good agreement with results using continuum elements and the finite
element mesh had a minor effect on the total horizontal and vertical forces for both
zero-thickness elements and continuum elements.
1070 I.P. Damians et al. / Equivalent Interface Properties to Model Soil-Facing Interactions

Table 3. Total horizontal force (kN/m) from normal stresses at the interface for coarse, fine and optimized
meshes with zero-thickness elements and continuum elements for modelling the interface (Ri = 0.8).
Surcharge, q Zero-thickness elements Continuum elements
(kPa) Coarse Fine Optimized Coarse Fine Optimized
10 12.06 12.06 12.08 12.29 12.22 12.11
50 36.11 36.15 35.95 36.31 36.71 36.12
100 66.25 66.19 65.93 67.33 67.20 66.62

Table 4. Total vertical force (kN/m) from shear stresses at the interface for coarse, fine and optimized
meshes with zero-thickness elements and continuum elements at the interface (Ri = 0.8).
Surcharge, q Zero-thickness elements Continuum elements
(kPa) Coarse Fine Optimized Coarse Fine Optimized
10 3.75 3.76 3.74 3.67 3.78 3.69
50 16.66 16.60 16.72 16.25 16.42 15.91
100 32.25 32.15 32.57 31.68 31.65 31.79

3.2. Effect of strength/stiffness reduction factor

Figure 4 shows the normal and shear stresses at the interface between the facing
structure and backfill soil for the three different strength/stiffness reduction factors
investigated. The modelling results showed that for the continuum elements, increasing
the strength/stiffness reduction factor (i.e., increasing the interface stiffness) resulted in
greater amplitude of both normal and shear stresse fluctuations in the plastic region
when other conditions were equal. However, as shown in Figure 5a, the total vertical
loads (i.e., equivalent force from shear stresses) at the interface between the facing and
backfill soil from the continuum elements are in good agreement with those from
simulations with zero-thickness elements.

3.3. Effect of real interface thickness with continuum elements

Modelling of an 18 mm-thick interface zone between dissimilar materials in earth

retaining walls using continuum elements can be problematic due to the large
difference in shape and size geometry between the different components within the
retaining wall. Thus it is desirable to increase the interface thickness while keeping the
same normal and shear stresses transferred between the soil and structures. In this
section two real interface thicknesses of ti* = 50 and 100 mm were examined. To keep
the same interface stiffness, the new shear modulus (Gi*) of the interface is calculated
as

Gi*  Gi / ti  ti* (6)

Here, vi*= vi = 0.45 and the new oedometer modulus, Eoed,i*, can be calculated from Eq.
5 with the new shear modulus, Gi*, and Poisson’s ratio vi* = 0.45.
The numerical results (Figure 5b) show that the real interface thickness had a
minor effect on the total vertical load at the interface between the facing and backfill
soil if the interface stiffness was kept the same. Thus a real interface zone between the
dissimilar materials using continuum elements with a thickness greater than the virtual
interface thickness using zero-thickness elements can be generated to model the soil-
structure interactions and give similar numerical outcomes if the soil property values
 I.P. Damians et al. / Equivalent Interface Properties to Model Soil-Facing Interactions 1071

within the real interface zone are properly calculated based on the same interface
stiffness.

a) 1.5

q = 10 kPa
Elevation (m)

1.0

q = 50 kPa
q=
10 kPa
0.5 q = 50 kPa
q = 100 kPa
q = 100 kPa

0.0
b) 1.5
Elevation (m)

1.0
q = 100 kPa
q=
q= q = 10 kPa
50 kPa q = 50 kPa
0.5 10 kPa
q = 100 kPa

0.0

c) 1.5

q = 100 kPa

(pl.r.) (el.r.) q=
(plastic
Elevation (m)

1.0 50 kPa
(el.r.) region) (pl.r.)
(pl.r.)
(pl.r.) (pl.r.)
(el.r.) q= (el.r.)
0.5 10 kPa
q=
q= (elastic (el.r.)
q= 100 kPa
50 kPa
10 kPa region) continuum elements
zero thickness
0.0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 0 10 20 30 40

Normal stress (kPa) Shear stress (kPa)

Figure 4. Normal and shear stresses at the interface between facing structure and backfill soil with optimized
mesh for three different strength/stiffness reduction factors: (a) Ri = 0.3, (b) Ri = 0.6, and (c) Ri = 1.0.

35
a) b)
Interface stiffness
Total vertical shear load (kN/m)

30
Ri -values:
0.3
25
0.45 q = 100 kPa Interface methodology:
0.6 zero thickness
20 0.8 continuum elements
(ti = 18 mm)
15
q = 50 kPa
10 Continuum elements interface:
Interface methodology: 50 mm-thick
zero thickness 100 mm-thick
5
continuum elements q = 10 kPa
(ti = 18 mm)
0
10 50 100 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8

Surcharge, q (kPa) Interface stiffness, Ri (-)

Figure 5. Total vertical load from shear stresses developed at backfill soil-facing interface.
 1072 I.P. Damians et al. / Equivalent Interface Properties to Model Soil-Facing Interactions

4. Conclusions

This paper presents numerical predictions of normal and shear stresses at the interface
between soil and a concrete facing using two interface modelling approaches (i.e., zero-
thickness elements and continuum elements) with equivalent interface properties based
on the Mohr-Coulomb failure criterion. A small earth retaining wall segment was used
to demonstrate how the interfaces between the dissimilar materials can be modelled
using both zero-thickness elements and continuum elements to capture soil-structure
interactions. Based on the cases and conditions examined, the following conclusions
are made:

x The finite element mesh had a minor influence on the predicted normal and
shear stresses at the interface between the facing panel and backfill soil when
using zero-thickness elements. Fluctuations of normal and shear stresses for
the interface with continuum elements were observed once the soil within the
interface zone reached plasticity (failed). However, the total vertical and
horizontal loads at the interface from continuum elements generally agreed
with those from zero-thickness elements.
x For the interface with continuum elements, the finite element mesh with the
lowest element aspect ratio (e.g., optimized mesh among the three meshes
examined in this paper) had the smallest normal and shear stress fluctuation
amplitudes. Increasing the strength/stiffness reduction factor (i.e., increasing
the interface stiffness) resulted in larger fluctuation amplitudes of normal and
shear stresses when other conditions were the same.
x The real interface zone using continuum elements with a thickness greater
than the interface virtual thickness from zero-thickness elements can be used
to generate similar numerical outcomes for finite element models with
continuum elements and zero-thickness elements, if the interface stiffness is
kept the same for both methods.

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