Visualizations as Open Education Tool for Soil Constitutive Modeling

Abstract:

Constitutive modeling is a core subject in the field of computational geotechnics, as the quality of predictions made by finite element simulations depends on the quality of the used constitutive model. For many students, constitutive modeling in engineering education is perceived as an abstract and 'hard to grasp' topic. 

The here presented project 'Animating Soil Models' aims to increase the understanding of constitutive modeling with the help of visualizations. 

Amongst others, the following topics are visualized: yield surfaces, stress invariants, Critical State Soil Mechanics and some related models as the Modified Cam Clay (MCC) model and clay hypo-plasticity. 

In the sense of open education, the animations will be shared on the platform SoilModels.com under the open license CC BY to use them as teaching and learning material.