Analysis of the elasto-plastic response of a polygonal packing

We investigate the constitutive response of two-dimensional packed samples of polygons using molecular dynamics simulation. The incremental elasto-plastic response is examined in the pre-failure regime. Besides the Young modulus and the Poisson ratio, an additional parameter must be included, which takes into account the anisotropy of the elastic response. The plastic deformations are described by the introduction of the yield and the flow directions. These directions do not agree, which reproduces the non-associated feature of realistic soils. In order to detect the yield surface, different loading-unloading-reloading tests were performed. During the reload path, it is found that the yielding develops continuously with the amplitude of loading, which does not allow to identify a purely elastic regime.