Formulation of anisotropic failure criteria incorporating a microstructure tensor

Anisotropy is inherently related to microstructural arrangement within a representative volume of material. The microstructure can be represented by a second order tensor whose eigenvectors specify the orientation of the axes of material symmetry. In this paper, failure criteria for geomaterials are formulated in terms of the stress state and a microstructure tensor. The classical criteria for isotropic materials are generalized for the case of orthotropy as well as transverse isotropy. The proposed approach is illustrated by a simple example demonstrating the sensitivity of the uniaxial strength of the material to the orientation of the sample relative to the loading direction. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.