CRACK PROPAGATION IN SOIL EMBANKMENT BASED ON X-FEM CONSIDERING TENSILE FAILURE MODE

Abstract

Present seismic design of soil embankment considers only shear failure, e.g., circular slip. However, open cracks likely caused by tensile failure were observed during the past earthquake. We perform the numerical analysis to reproduce failure tensile crack propagation in soil embankment. In previous study, elasto-plastic analysis for soil embankment considering shear and tensile failure was performed. The elasto- plastic model used in that study can reproduce strain-softening of dense sand by both shear and tensile deformation. We apply eXtended finite element method (X-FEM) to the dynamic behavior of soil embankment with considering crack propagation. The model enables to include typical crack behaviors such as strain concentration, crack opening and contact of crack planes. We introduce criteria of crack occurrence, crack position and angle, and then show a numerical example of dynamic analysis of soil embankment. The numerical result shows typical failure patterns of soil embankment.