Numerical Modeling on Small‐Strain Stiffness and Viscoelastic‐Viscoplastic Characteristic of Soft Soils

ABSTRACT The behavior of soft soils distributed in coastal areas usually exhibits obvious time‐dependent behavior after loading. To reasonably describe the stress‐strain relationship of soft soils, this paper establishes a viscoelastic‐viscoplastic small‐strain constitutive model based on the component model and the hardening soil model with small‐strain stiffness (HSS model). First, the Perzyna's viscoplastic flow rule and the modified Hardin–Drnevich model are introduced to derive a one‐dimensional incremental Nishihara constitutive equation. Next, the flexibility coefficient matrix is utilized to extend the one‐dimensional model to three‐dimensional conditions. Then, by combining the HSS elastoplastic theory with the component model, the viscoelastic‐viscoplastic small‐strain constitutive model is subsequently established. To implement the proposed model for numerical analysis, the corresponding UMAT subroutine is developed using Fortran. After comparing the results of numerical simulations with those of existing literature, the reliability of the constitutive model and the program written in this paper is verified. Finally, numerical examples are designed to further analyze the effects of small‐strain parameters and viscoelastic‐viscoplastic parameters on the time‐dependent behavior of soft soils.