Modeling footing resting on anisotropic sand using material point method

Sand typically exhibits anisotropic internal structure which may significantly influence its mechanical behavior. The material point method (MPM) can eliminate mesh distortion and thus is suitable for investigating geotechnical problems with large deformation. In this study, an advanced anisotropic critical state theory (ACST)-based soil model is implemented in MPM to study the response of strip footing resting on anisotropic sand. The capability of the model is verified by simulating several element tests and strip footing tests with different soil densities and fabric bedding plane orientations. For the footing problem with a vertical load, as the fabric bedding plane orientation increases, the bearing capacity decreases and its corresponding settlement increases. The failure pattern becomes asymmetrical when the bedding plane orientation or the loading direction is inclined. A comparison between the simulation results predicted by the anisotropic and isotropic models is made, which demonstrates that neglecting the fabric anisotropy may lead to the overestimation of the bearing capacity.