LIMIT ANALYSIS OF ANISOTROPIC SOILS USING FINITE-ELEMENTS AND LINEAR-PROGRAMMING

The main purpose of this paper is to present a finite element formulat ion of the bound theorems which allows for the variation of soil stren gth with direction. To achieve this objective, the conventional isotro pic Mohr - Coulomb yield criterion is generalised to include the effec t of strength anisotropy. The finite element limit analysis formulatio n using the modified anisotropic yield criterion is then developed. Se veral examples are given in the paper to illustrate the capability and effectiveness of the proposed numerical procedure for computing rigor ous bounds for anisotropic soils.