Use of elastic stability analysis to explain the stress-dependent nature of soil strength

Abstract

The peak and critical state strengths of sands are linearly related to the stress level, just as the frictional resistance to sliding along an interface is related to the normal force. The analogy with frictional sliding has led to the use of a ‘friction angle’ to describe the relationship between strength and stress for soils. The term ‘friction angle’ implies that the underlying mechanism is frictional resistance at the particle contacts. However, experiments and discrete element simulations indicate that the material friction angle is not simply related to the friction angle at the particle contacts.