UBCHYST- A TOTAL STRESS HYSTERETIC MODEL

Abstract
UBCHYST (Byrne and Naesgaard 2010) has been developed at University of British Columbia for
dynamic analyses of soil subjected to earthquake loading. In order to speed up the computations the FISH
source code was converted to C++ and compiled as a DLL. This report briefly presents the numerical
implementation of the UBCHYST constitutive model into the FLAC program.
1.

Soil constitutive model

UBCHYST (Byrne and Naesgaard 2010) model is intended to be used with undrained strength
parameters in low permeability clayey and silty soils, or in highly permeable granular soils where excess
pore water would dissipate as it is generated. The model has been implemented in the two dimensional
finite difference program FLAC (Itasca, 2011).

Figure 1. UBCHYST model key variables (from Byrne and Naesgaard 2010).
The essence of this hysteretic model is that the tangent shear modulus ( ) is a function of the peak shear
modulus (

) times a reduction factor that is a function of the developed stress ratio and the change in

stress ratio to reach failure. This function is as shown in equation (1) and illustrated in Figure 1.
1

Where
stress ratio

(1)


= stress ratio

since last reversal

= maximum stress ration (

at last reversal

= change in stress ratio to reach failure envelope in direction of loading

sin

cos

= developed shear stress in horizontal plane

= vertical effective stress

= peak friction angle
,

and

are calibration parameters with suggested default values 1, 1 and 2 respectively.

1= a reduction factor for first-time or virgin loading (typically 0.6 to 0.8)

2= optional function to account for permanent modulus reduction with large
1

0.1

3= optional function to account for cyclic degradation of modulus with strain or number of cycles,
etc.
Stress reversals occur if the absolute value of the mobilized stress ratio () is less than the previous value
and a cross-over occurs if

changes sign. A stress reversal causes 1 to be reset to 0 and

to be

recalculated. However, the program retains the previous reversals (1old and 1fold) so that small hysteretic
loops that are subsets of larger loops do not change the behavior of the large loop (Figure 1). With the
above equation the tangent shear modulus varies throughout the loading cycle to give hysteretic stressstrain loops with the characteristics illustrated in Figure 1.
2.

Implementation

The original UBCHYSTs FISH source code (Byrne and Naesgaard 2010).was rewritten, optimized, and
compiled in C++ in order to maximize the computational speed. The input variables for the UBCHYST
model are:

The tensor of the increments of the total strains

, which is determined by the solver for each

computational step by means of the equation of motion and by means of the stress state

, which

has been evaluated using the constitutive law in the previous step.

The tensor of the stresses

which has been evaluated in the previous step.

The stress ration parameters such as ,

and

which have been evaluated in the

previous step.
The output variables are:
.

The new tensor of the stresses

The new stress ration parameters ,

The shear modulus using equation 1.

and

The numerical implementation of the UBCHYST model can be subdivided into three principal blocks:

evaluation of the first trial elastic stresses;

evaluation of plastic corrections;

update of the stress ratio parameters;

update the moduli (i.e. shear and bulk).


3.

Model input parameters

List of the parameters associated with UBCHYST model and their corresponding symbols in the DLL
version is presented in Table 1.
Table 1. UBCHYST input parameters.

4.

Parameter description

Symbol used in constitutive model

Cohesion

hcoh

Friction angle

hfric

Dilation angle

hdil

Tensile strength

hten

Small strain max. shear modulus

hgmax

Bulk modulus

hk

Hysteretic parameter

hn

Hysteretic parameter

hrf

Hysteretic parameter

hrm

Hysteretic parameter

hdfac

Atmospheric pressure

hpa

Soil parameter calibration

The model was calibrated by comparing uniform cyclic response to that inferred from published modulus
reduction and damping curves (i.e. Darendeli, 2001) as shown in Figure 2 and/or by comparison to the
results of cyclic simple shear laboratory tests for cohesionless soil (sand). The simple shear test is
preferred over triaxial loading because the loading path with rotation of principal axes, etc. more closely
resembles the stress path from earthquake loading. As Show in in Figure 2a The UBCHYST model best
matches to the Darendeli (2001) modulus reduction curves. However, the model did overestimate the
damping response at medium to large (>0.1%) shear strains (Figure 2b). The reason for this
overestimation of damping factor appeared to be due to width of the hysteresis loop in the UBCHYST
model. The calibrated parameters have been used for next step of calibration as described below. The
calibrated parameters for cohesionless soil (Sand) for different effective vertical stresses (0.25, 1, 4, 16
atm) are summarized at Table 2.

1.2
o' = 0.25 atm
o' = 1.0 atm

o' = 4.0 atm

o' = 16 atm

G/Gmax

0.8

FLAC-0.25atm
FLAC-1atm

0.6

FLAC-4atm
FLAC-16atm

0.4
0.2
0
1.00E-04

1.00E-03

1.00E-02
Shearing Strain (%)

1.00E-01

1.00E+00

1.00E-01

1.00E+00

(a)
25
o' = 0.25 atm

Damping, %

20
15

o' = 1.0 atm

o' = 4.0 atm
o' = 16 atm
FLAC-0.25atm
FLAC-1atm

10

FLAC-4atm
FLAC-16atm

5
0
1.00E-04

1.00E-03

1.00E-02
Shearing Strain, %

(b)
Figure 2. (a) Modulus reduction and (b) Damping ratio curve estimated by FLAC using UBCHYST
model for cohesionless soil (sand).

Table 2. Initial input parameters for the UBCHYST soil properties in the FLAC model
Parameters
hGmax (kPa)
hbulk (kPa)
hcoh (kPa)
hfric (deg.)
hdil (deg.)
hten (kPa)
hn
hrf
hdfac
hrm
hpa (kPa)
hn1

5.

o' = 25.33 kPa

(0.25 atm)
2.70E+04
2.70E+04
0.0
35.0
0.0
0.0
3.0
0.98
0.0
0.5
100.0
1.0

o' = 101 kPa

(1 atm)
5.35E+04
5.35E+04
0.0
35.0
0.0
0.0
3.3
0.98
0.0
0.5
100.0
1.0

o' = 404 kPa

(4 atm)
1.07E+05
1.07E+05
0.0
35.0
0.0
0.0
4.0
0.98
0.0
0.5
100.0
1.0

o' = 1616 kPa

(16 atm)
2.14E+05
2.14E+05
0.0
35.0
0.0
0.0
4.0
0.98
0.0
0.5
100.0
1.0

Included documents / files

V5.0/modelubchyst2D.dll
V6.0/modelubchyst2D.dll
V7.0/modelubchyst2D.dll
example/dss.dat

a DLL file of the UBCHYST2D model compiled with Microsoft Visual

C++ 2005 at 32bit for FLAC v5.0.
a DLL file of the UBCHYST2D model compiled with Microsoft Visual
C++ 2005 at 32bit for FLAC v6.0.
a DLL file of the UBCHYST2D model compiled with Microsoft Visual
C++ 2005 at 32bit for FLAC v7.0.
example input file test for FLAC2D.


6.

Contact address

Roozbeh Geraili Mikola, PhD

Jacobs Associates
49 Stevenson, 3rd Floor
San Francisco, CA 94105
Direct: (415) 249-8216
Fax: (415) 956-8502
Email: mikola@jacobssf.com or roozbehg@live.com

www.jacobssf.com

Prof. Nicholas Sitar

University of California, Berkeley
Civil and Environmental Engineering, Geoengineering Department
Davis Hall
UC Berkeley
Berkeley, California
94720-1710
Phone: (510) 643-8623
Fax: (510) 642-7476
Email: sitar@ce.berkeley.edu

7.

Acknowledgments

This work was performed with funding from NSF-NEES-CR Grant No. CMMI-0936376: Seismic Earth
Pressures on Retaining Structures through collaborative project Between University of California,
Berkeley and Itasca Consulting Group Inc. Prof. Peter Byrne and Dr. Ernest Neasgaard generously
provided the UBCHYST FISH source code and advice on constitutive model performance for the
numerical modeling part of this study. Programs FLAC2D and FLAC3D were generously made available
by Itasca Consulting Group Inc. under collaborative research agreements. Jacobs Associates generously
provided the first author with the opportunity to pursue the research.


8.

References

Byrne, P.M. and Naesgaard, E., 2010. Personal Communications.

Itasca Consulting Group, Inc. (2011). FLAC (Fast Lagrangian Analysis of Continua) user's
manuals, Minneapolis, MN.

Darendeli, M. B. (2001). Development of a new family of normalized modulus reduction and

material damping curves. Austin, Texas: The University of Texas.