Multiscale elastoplastic and damage modelling of hard clay

The present study is devoted to the development of a non linear homogenization approach of the mechanical behavior of hard clays. The material is modelled as an heterogeneous one composed of an elastoplastic clay matrix and of linear elastic or elastic damage inclusions. The macroscopic constitutive law is obtained by adaptating the incremental method introduced by Hill (Hill 1965). The approach consists to built the macroscopic tangent matrix of the material which depends on the non linear local behavior of each phase. Due to the matrix/inclusion morphology of the microstructure of the hard clay, a Mori-Tanaka homogenization scheme is considered. The developed model is applied for the prediction of the macroscopic stress strain responses of hard clays.