Limit analysis of anisotropic soils using finite elements and linear programming

The main purpose of this paper is to present a finite element formulation of the bound theorems which allows for the variation of soil strength with direction. To achieve this objective, the conventional isotropic Mohr-Coulomb yield criterion is generalised to include the effect of strength anisotropy. The finite element limit analysis formulation using the modified anisotropic yield criterion is then developed. Several examples are given in the paper to illustrate the capability and effectiveness of the proposed numerical procedure for computing rigorous bounds for anisotropic soils.