A METHOD TO CORRECT YIELD SURFACE DRIFT IN SOIL PLASTICITY UNDER MIXED CONTROL AND EXPLICIT INTEGRATION

When applying an explicit integration algorithm in e.g. soil plasticity, the predicted stress point at the end of an elastoplastic increment of loading might not be situated on the updated current yield surface. This so‐called yield surface drift could generally be held under control by using small integration steps. Another possibility, when circumstances might demand larger steps, is to adopt a drift correction method. In this paper, a drift correction method for mixed control in soil plasticity, under drained as well as undrained conditions, is proposed. By simulating triaxial tests in a Constitutive Driver, the capability and efficiency of this correction method, under different choices of implementation, have been analysed. It was concluded that the proposed drift correction method, for quite marginal additional computational cost, was able to correct successfully for yield surface drift giving results in close agreement to those obtained with a very large number of integration steps. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.