ABSTRACT

The microstructural model developed by Chang & Hicher (2005) is briefly described here. In this model, a soil is viewed as a collection of non-cohesive particles. The deformation of a representative volume of the material is generated by mobilizing particle contacts in various orientations. On each contact plane, an auxiliary local coordinate can be established by means of three orthogonal unit vectors n, s, t. The vector n is outward normal to the contact plane. Vectors s and t are on the contact plane.