ABSTRACT
Whereas Volume 1 in this series was principally concerned with the use of physical models of soils and soil systems to elucidate the behaviour of a variety of foundation structures, the present volume focuses on advances in the numerical modelling of soil response to changes in applied stress. This is a field which has progressed rapidly in the past few years as constitutive equations, and the computer algorithms interpreting them, have become more and more sophisticated in attempts to reproduce adequately the complexities of real soil behaviour. The book presents some of the more powerful numerical soil-modelling techniques in a sufficiently rigorous mechanics framework whilst, at the same time, providing the reader with critical analyses, in two chapters, of the ever-present problems of soil parameter determination. The final chapter is a comprehensive review of the development, performance and measurements obtained from in situ pressure-meter tests which serves to keep in perspective the inevitable gap between the reality of the soil profile on a construction site and the world of the numerical modeller-a gap which, we hope, this book will, in a small way, help to bridge.
