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An important concern in rock mechanics is non-homogeneity as joints or fault. Adopting the joints as fractures, fractures are well known for their effects on the mechanical and transport properties of rock. It has been postulated that through fractured/jointed rock, mainly, the polygons turned to the shear vector (ti) are involved in the mobilization of shear resistance. Consequently, in order to locate the contact areas implicated into the shear-test it was firstly necessary to fix the shear direction. Moreover, since laboratory observations clearly show that only the steepest polygon surfaces touch the other sample, the identification of the potential sliding areas only requires the determination of the polygons which are faced to the shear direction and which, among them, are steep enough to be involved. The methodology to be discussed here is modeling of slip on the local and global levels due to the distribution of deformation procedure of the rock joint. Upon the presented methodology, more attention has been given to slip initiation and propagation through rock joint. In particular, softening in non-linear behaviour of joint in going from the peak to residual strengths imparts a behaviour often associated with progressive failure. A multi-plane based model is developed and used to compute plastic strain distribution and failure mechanism of rock joints. Validity of the presented model was examined by comparing numerical and test results showing the behavior of both homogeneous and jointed rock samples under general stress conditions.

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The unique behaviour of carbonate sediments under shear loading has stimulated in investigating of their geological and engineering properties. Their shapes are very different varying from needle shaped to platy shaped. Hence, it is important to examine their fabric effect on soil response under shearing condition. To this aim a series of small scale laboratory element testing were carried out on North Cornwall Rock" beach sand. Non-cemented and cemented Carbonate sand response under compression and extension loading and different initial density and confining pressure with samples allowed to be drained were investigated and compared. The results show that the sand shear strength under Extension loading is lower than compression regarding to anisotropic fabric due to platy and needle shape of grains. The anisotropy is reduced with increasing the confining pressure and initial relative density with non-cemented sand. Furthermore, present of cement bounds reduces the anisotropy especially in low confining pressures.

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A semi-micromechanical multilaminate model is introduced here to predict the mechanical behavior of soils.

This model is like a bridge between micro and macro scale upon the satisfaction of minimum potential energy level

during any applied stress/strain increments. The concept of this model is based on a certain number of sampling planes

which constitute the elastic-plastic behavior of the soil. The soil behavior presents as the summation of behavior on

these planes. A simple unconventional constitutive equations are used in each of the planes to describe the behavior

of these planes separately. An unconventional plasticity can predict the soil behavior as a smooth curve with

considering plastic deformation due to change of stress state inside the yield surface. The model is capable of

predicting softening behavior of the soil in a reasonable manner due to using unconventional plasticity. The influences

of induced anisotropy are included in a rational way without any additional hypotheses owing to in-nature properties

of the multilaminate framework. Results of this model are compared with test data and reasonable agreement is found.

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Portland cement can be mixed with sand to improve its mechanical characteristics. Many studies are reported in literature on this topic, but the effect of principal stress rotation has not been investigated yet. Considering the inherent anisotropy of most sands, it is not clear whether the added cement shall contribute to equal increase in strength and stiffness at vertical and horizontal directions or not. Furthermore, it is not well understood how the cement as an additive in non-compacted (loose) sand compared to compacted (dense) sand without cement, contribute to improving the material behavior in undrained condition such as limiting the deformations and the liquefaction potential. In this research, undrained triaxial and simple shear tests under different stress paths are carried out on different mixtures of Portland cement (by adding 1.5, 3 and 5 percent) with clean sand to investigate the effect of principal stress rotations. The triaxial test results revealed that the cement mixture reduces the anisotropy, while it improves the mixture mechanical properties compared to compacted sand without cement. The results of the simple shear tests validated the triaxial test results and further clarified the effect of the  parameter or rotation of principal stresses on the behavior of cemented sand mixtures.

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This paper investigates the time dependent behaviour of Sunshine embankment on soft clay deposit with and without prefabricated vertical drains. An elasto visco-plastic model was used to investigate the influence of anisotropy and creep effect on the settlement behaviour of the embankment. The constitutive model, namely ACM accounts for combined effects of plastic anisotropy and creep. For comparison, the problem is also analysed with isotropic Modified Cam Clay model which does not consider creep effect. To analyse the PVD-improved subsoil, axisymmetric vertical drains were converted into equivalent plane strain conditions using two different mapping approaches. The results of the numerical analyses are compared with the field measurements. The numerical simulations suggest that the anisotropic creep model is able to give a better representation of soft clay response under an embankment loading. The isotropic model which neglects effects of anisotropy and creep may lead to inaccurate predictions of soft clay response. Additionally, the numerical results show that the mapping method used for PVD improved soft clays can accurately predict the consolidation behaviour of the embankment and provide a useful tool for engineering practice.