Observations of Stresses and Strains in a Granular Material
Publication: Journal of Engineering Mechanics
Volume 135, Issue 9
Abstract
The use of glass ballotini as a granular material provides the opportunity to simultaneously study internal stress fields and internal fields of deformation as a sample is submitted to boundary perturbations. Digital image correlation makes use of the visible fabric of the material to deduce a field of displacements from one digital photographic image to the next. If the glass granules are immersed in a fluid having the same refractive index, then observation with polarized light exploits the photoelastic properties of the glass to reveal information about the stresses. Again, comparison of digital photographs enables changes in stress conditions from one image to the next to be discovered. Tests performed in a simple loading device which forces rotation of principal axes in parts of the granular mass are presented to demonstrate the unique potential of this dual experimental configuration.
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Acknowledgments
This collaboration was made possible by a British Council Research Partnership award which supported exchange visits between the two writers. The experiments conducted in Gdansk could not have been performed without the valuable assistance of Krzysztof Gaca and Dr. Marek Skodowski (IFTR PAS in Warsaw). The cheerful advice and guidance from David White in connection with the use of the program GeoPIV is gratefully acknowledged.
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Information
Published In
Journal of Engineering Mechanics
Volume 135 • Issue 9 • September 2009
Pages: 1038 - 1054
Copyright
© 2009 ASCE.
History
Received: Apr 19, 2008
Accepted: Dec 10, 2008
Published online: Mar 6, 2009
Published in print: Sep 2009
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