Barodesy: a new hypoplastic approach

It is shown that the asymptotic mechanical behaviour (i.e. stresses asymptotically obtained with constant deformation rates) determines the entire mechanical behaviour of granular materials, such as soil. In this paper, a constitutive model, or rather a new theoretical framework, for sand is derived in terms of rational mechanics. The new theory, called barodesy, has an outstanding simplicity and comprises previously introduced concepts of Soil Mechanics: critical states and barotropy (i.e. power law dependence of stiffness on stress). Copyright (c) 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.