A Generalized Plasticity approach for describing the behaviour of silty soils forming the Venetian lagoon basin.

In this paper, the mechanical response of silty sediments forming the upper profile of the Venice lagoon basin is modelled within a theoretical framework known as Generalized Plasticity. Starting from an existing formulation developed for the analysis of sand behaviour, some modifications are introduced in the original model in order to better simulate the stress-strain response of such non-active natural soils over a wide range of stresses and densities. A state dependent dilatancy is included in the constitutive equations. Moreover, according to recent developments on the isotropic compression of granular soils and on the modelling of softening in dense sands, adjustments to the plastic modulus expression are introduced. The approach is validated by comparing the model predictions with experimental results of drained triaxial compression tests on natural and reconstituted samples of soils, having different fine contents