An improved return-mapping scheme for nonsmooth yield surfaces: PART I - the Haigh-Westergaard coordinates

Abstract: The paper is devoted to the numerical solution of elastoplastic constitutive initial value problems. An improved form of the implicit return-mapping scheme for nonsmooth yield surfaces is proposed that systematically builds on a subdifferential formulation of the flow rule. The main advantage of this approach is that the treatment of singular points, such as apices or edges at which the flow direction is multivalued involves only a uniquely defined set of non-linear equations, similarly to smooth yield surfaces. This paper (PART I) is focused on isotropic models containing: $a)$ yield surfaces with one or two apices (singular points) laying on the hydrostatic axis; $b)$ plastic pseudo-potentials that are independent of the Lode angle; $c)$ nonlinear isotropic hardening (optionally). It is shown that for some models the improved integration scheme also enables to a priori decide about a type of the return and investigate existence, uniqueness and semismoothness of discretized constitutive operators in implicit form. Further, the semismooth Newton method is introduced to solve incremental boundary-value problems. The paper also contains numerical examples related to slope stability with available Matlab implementation.