The evolution of strain localisation in a hypoplastic cosserat material under shearing

Numerical studies of the evolution of strain localisation and polar effects within a plane layer of a granular material under monotonic shearing are presented. Herein a micro-polar approach is formulated within the framework of a hypoplastic Cosserat continuum to describe the essential properties of a dry and cohesionless granular material like sand. The constitutive model is based on incremental non-linear tensor-valued functions and captures the influence of the pressure, the void ratio, the mean grain diameter and the rotation resistance of the grains on the evolution of the stresses and couple stresses. The Cosserat boundary conditions are suitable to model the rotation resistance at the interface between the granular layer and the surfaces adjoining the boundaries of the granular body. The numerical investigations show that the location, thickness and evolution of strain localisation within the shear layer are strongly influenced by the boundary conditions and the initial state quantities.