Validation of explicit method to predict accumulation of strain during single and multistage cyclic loading

The present paper validates an innovative explicit method to predict the accumulation of soil deformation during cyclic loading condition. The accumulation of strains is produced by reducing a fictive elastic shear modulus of the soil based on cyclic contour diagrams. This connection is integrated into the finite element software PLAXIS 3D by means of a remote scripting interface. The paper will provide an insight into how to interpolate the permanent shear strain in 3D cyclic contour diagrams from single-stage cyclic tests with a sand, which is typical for the North Sea. A mathematical framework is proposed which helps to ease the interpolation. After this, the validation of the link between the stiffness degradation method and the 3D cyclic contour diagram is provided by modeling single stage tests in PLAXIS 3D. Further, the explicit method is compared against mul-tistage tests to understand the link between the stress history of cyclic stress parcels.