Quantitative evaluation of the effect of irregularly shaped particles in sheared granular assemblies (original) (raw)
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Influence of Particle Shape on Shear Stress in Granular Media
Traffic and Granular Flow ’07, 2009
We analyze the contact and force networks in a dense confined packing of pentagonal particles simulated by means of the contact dynamics method. The particle shape effect is evidenced by comparing the data from pentagon packing and from a packing with identical characteristics except for the circular shape of the particles. A surprising observation is that the pentagon packing develops a lower structural anisotropy than the disk packing. We show in this work that this weakness is compensated by a higher force anisotropy that leads to enhanced shear strength of the pentagon packing. With the polygonal shape of the particles, the strong force chains are mostly composed of edge-to-edge contacts with a marked zig-zag aspect.
Systematic description of the effect of particle shape on the strength properties of granular media
EPJ Web of Conferences
In this paper, we explore numerically the effect of particle shape on the mechanical behavior of sheared granular packings. In the framework of the Contact Dynamic (CD) Method, we model angular shape as irregular polyhedral particles, non-convex shape as regular aggregates of four overlapping spheres, elongated shape as rounded cap rectangles and platy shape as square-plates. Binary granular mixture consisting of disks and elongated particles are also considered. For each above situations, the number of face of polyhedral particles, the overlap of spheres, the aspect ratio of elongated and platy particles, are systematically varied from spheres to very angular, non-convex, elongated and platy shapes. The level of homogeneity of binary mixture varies from homogenous packing to fully segregated packings. Our numerical results suggest that the effects of shape parameters are nonlinear and counterintuitive. We show that the shear strength increases as shape deviate from spherical shape. But, for angular shapes it first increases up to a maximum value and then saturates to a constant value as the particles become more angular. For mixture of two shapes, the strength increases with respect of the increase of the proportion of elongated particles, but surprisingly it is independent with the level of homogeneity of the mixture. A detailed analysis of the contact network topology, evidence that various contact types contribute differently to stress transmission at the micro-scale.
Journal of Applied Mechanics, 2021
Force chains have been regarded as an important hallmark of granular materials. Numerous studies have examined their evolution, properties, and statistics in highly idealized, often circular-shaped, granular assemblies. However, particles found in nature and handled in industries come in a wide variety of shapes. In this article, we experimentally investigate the robustness of force chains with respect to particle shape. We present a detailed analysis on the particle- to continuum-scale response of granular materials affected by particle shape, which includes the force transmission and mobilized shear strength. The effect of shape is studied by comparing experimental results collected from shear tests performed on 2D analog circular- and arbitrarily shaped granular assemblies. Particle shapes are directly discretized from X-ray CT images of a real sand sample. By inferring individual contact forces using the granular element method (GEM), we provide a direct visualization of the for...
Influence of particle shape on sheared dense granular media
Granular Matter, 2007
We study by means of molecular dynamics simulations of periodic shear cells, the influence of particle shape on the global mechanical behavior of dense granular media. At large shear deformation samples with elongated particles, independent of their initial orientation, reach the same stationary value for both shear force and void ratio. At the micro-mechanical level the stress, the fabric and the inertia tensors of the particles are used to study the evolution of the media. In the case of isotropic particles the direction of the principal axis of the fabric tensor is aligned with the one of the principal stress, while for elongated particles the fabric orientation is strongly dependent on the orientation of the particles. The shear band width is shown to depend on the particle shape due to the tendency of elongated particles to preferential orientations and less rotation.
Effects of shape and size polydispersity on strength properties of granular materials
Physical Review E, 2015
By means of extensive contact dynamics simulations, we analyze the combined effects of polydispersity both in particle size and in particle shape, defined as the degree of shape irregularity, on the shear strength and microstructure of sheared granular materials composed of pentagonal particles. We find that the shear strength is independent of the size span, but unexpectedly, it declines with increasing shape polydispersity. At the same time, the solid fraction is an increasing function of both the size span and the shape polydispersity. Hence, the densest and loosest packings have the same shear strength. At the scale of the particles and their contacts, we analyze the connectivity of particles, force transmission, and friction mobilization as well as their anisotropies. We show that stronger forces are carried by larger particles and propped by an increasing number of small particles. The independence of shear strength with regard to size span is shown to be a consequence of contact network self-organization, with the falloff of contact anisotropy compensated by increasing force anisotropy.
Micromechanical features of granular assemblies with planar elliptical particles
Géotechnique, 1992
This Paper presents the results of numerical simulations of planar assemblies of elliptical particles. Qualitative features of these systems that are similar to real sand behaviour are identified and the influence of particle eccentricity on peak friction angle and peak dilation rate is explored in a systematic manner. The Paper also presents theoretical developments that extend stress-forcefabric relationships previously published for granular assemblies comprising perfectly circular particles to two-dimensional systems comprising particles with an elliptical shape. The results of numerical simulations are used to verify the accuracy of the proposed stress-force-fabric relationship.
Mechanics of Materials, 2009
In this study, we report a direct comparison between a physical test and a computer simulation of rapidly sheared granular materials. An annular shear cell experiment was conducted. All parameters were kept the same between the physical and the computational systems to the extent possible. Artificially softened particles were used in the simulation to reduce the computational time to a manageable level. Sensitivity study on the particle stiffness ensured such artificial modification was acceptable. In the experiment, a range of normal stress was applied to a given amount of particles sheared in an annular trough with a range of controlled shear speed. Two types of particles, glass and Delrin, were used in the experiment. Qualitatively, the required torque to shear the materials under different rotational speed compared well with those in the physical experiments for both the glass and the Delrin particles. However, the quantitative discrepancies between the measured and simulated shear stresses were nearly a factor of two. Boundary conditions, particle size distribution, particle damping and friction, including a sliding and rolling, contact force model, were examined to determine their effects on the computational results. It was found that of the above, the rolling friction between particles had the most significant effect on the macro stress level. This study shows that discrete element simulation is a viable method for engineering design for granular material systems. Particle level information is needed to properly conduct these simulations. However, not all particle level information is equally important in the study regime. Rolling friction, which is not commonly considered in many discrete element models, appears to play an important role.
Effect of Particle Size on the Shear Strength Behavior of Granular Materials
During plastic deformation of granular materials due to loading, the stress-strain and strength characteristics of sand grains are influenced with grain size, their distribution and packing. Also the macroscopic behaviour of granular materials changes with the variation of microscopic behaviour. Particle size is one of the important properties which plays a dominant role on the stress, strain and strength responses of granular materials. Alteration of grain size results in the change of void ratio as well as particle effective contact area revolutionized and the load distribution mechanism of particle to particle contact. To evaluate the effect of particle size, a series of direct shear tests were performed considering uniform particles of eight samples (0.075, 0.15, 0.212, 0.300, 0.600, 1.18, 1.72 and 2.76 mm) and graded particles of two samples (0.075-1.18 mm and 0.075-2.36 mm). Three types of normal loads (0.05, 0.10 and 0.15 kN) were selected for each test. For uniform particles, particles retained on individual sieve size were considered and in graded particles combination of each uniform particle pondered. A theoretical approach was also proposed to correlate the particle size and macroscopic response. From the experimental results it was observed that for each set of normal load with the increase of particle size, angle of internal friction as well as maximum horizontal shear stress increases for uniform sands and a similar response was noticed in graded sands but the larger the gradation the higher the shear strength. Maximum horizontal shear and angle of internal friction with respect to particle size is also influenced by normal stress. Experimental results have good agreement with the theoretical approach.
Granular Matter
The behavior of granular materials is very complex in nature and depends on particle shape, stress path, fabric, density, particle size distribution, amongst others. This paper presents a study of the effect of particle geometry (aspect ratio) on the mechanical behaviour of granular materials using the Discrete Element Method (DEM). This study discusses 3D DEM simulations of conventional triaxial and true triaxial tests. The numerical experiments employ samples with different particle aspect ratios and a unique particle size distribution (PSD). Test results show that both particle aspect ratio (AR) and intermediate stress ratio (b=(σ2'-σ3')/(σ1'-σ3')) affect the macroand micro-scale responses. At the macro-scale, the shear strength decreases with an increase in both aspect ratio and intermediate stress ratio b values. At the micro-scale level, the fabric evolution is also affected by both AR and b. The results from DEM analyses qualitatively agree with available experimental data. The critical state behaviour and failure states are also discussed. It is observed that the position of the critical state loci in the compression (e-p') space is only slightly affected by aspect ratio (AR) while the critical stress ratio is dependent on both AR and b. It is also demonstrated that the influence of the aspect ratio and the intermediate stress can be captured by micro-scale fabric evolutions that can be well understood within the framework of existing critical state theories. It is also found that for a given stress path, a unique critical state fabric norm is dependent on the particle shape but is independent of critical state void ratio.
Physical Review E
We present a systematic numerical investigation concerning the combined effects of sliding friction and particle shape (i.e., angularity) parameters on the shear strength and microstructure of granular packings. Sliding friction at contacts varied from 0 (frictionless particles) to 0.7, and the particles were irregular polygons with an increasing number of sides, ranging from triangles to disks. We find that the effect of local friction on shear strength follows the same trend for all shapes. Strength first increases with local friction and then saturates at a shape-dependent value. In contrast, the effect of angularity varies, depending on the level of sliding friction. For low friction values (i.e., under 0.3), the strength first increases with angularity and then declines for the most angular shapes. For high friction values, strength systematically increases with angularity. At the microscale, we focus on the connectivity and texture of the contact and force networks. In general terms, increasing local friction causes these networks to be less connected and more anisotropic. In contrast, increasing particle angularity may change the network topology in different directions, directly affecting the macroscopic shear strength. These analyses and data constitute a first step toward understanding the joint effect of local variables such as friction and grain shape on the macroscopic rheology of granular systems.