“…The layer is assumed to deform elasto–viscoplastically and modeled by the simple frictional‐link and dashpot system shown in Figure 2, where
is the constrained elastic modulus of the spring and
is the constrained plastic modulus of the link. The setup readily reduces to a Maxwell viscoelastic model when the initial yield stress
and plastic modulus
are both zero
72,73 ; however, it does not reduce to the Kelvin arrangement
72,74,75 . The plastic modulus
can be made to be a nonlinear function of deformation to closely match real soil behavior, 76 but for now we shall assume it to be constant.…”