Identification of soil stress-strain response from full field displacement measurements in plane strain model tests

The significant amount of image data that can be generated during physical model tests can provide a useful alternative and direct route to determining the stress-strain response characteristics of the soil used in the model without recourse to e.g. sampling and triaxial testing. This paper builds on previous work that has shown how using external loading data and Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) derived full-field displacement data allows the use of optimisation to reconstruct the stress-strain curve of the soil body in a piecewise manner. In this paper the technique is applied to both artificial and physical plane strain test scenarios to illustrate the potential of the method and discusses some of its advantages and challenges, particularly with respect to handling imperfect or noisy physical test data.