Quantitative Characterization Method for the Microcontacts and Macrocontacts of Two-Dimensional Granular Materials
Publication: International Journal of Geomechanics
Volume 18, Issue 4
Abstract
This article puts forward a quantified characterization method of micro- and macrocontacts of granular materials. The microcontact is defined as the contact surface with two voids in its two ends. The macrocontact is defined as a sequence that is composed of microcontacts and satisfies the condition of a one-dimensional manifold. The two dual geometrical systems can be extracted from the granular assembly. The edges and paths in the solid-cell system can realize the quantified topological characterization of the micro- and macrocontacts. For cemented granular materials, each crack can be treated as a gaping contact. The contact characterization can be used to visualize the cracks in the simulation results of the discrete-element method (DEM). The shortest-path algorithm can help judge if there is a macrocrack in the numerical specimen and acquire the quantified failure route. The contact force of an arbitrary macrocontact can be calculated by the vector addition of the force on the particle contacts that compose it.
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Acknowledgments
The National Key Research and Development Plan (Grant 2016YFC0501104), the National Natural Science Foundation and Outstanding Youth Foundation (Grant 51522903), the National Basic Research Program of China (Grant 2011CB013500), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant U1361103, 51479094, 51379104), and the Open Research Fund Program of the State Key Laboratory of Hydroscience and Engineering (Grants 2013-KY-06, 2015-KY-04 and 2016-KY-02) are gratefully acknowledged.
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Published In
International Journal of Geomechanics
Volume 18 • Issue 4 • April 2018
Copyright
© 2018 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Apr 4, 2017
Accepted: Sep 27, 2017
Published online: Feb 12, 2018
Published in print: Apr 1, 2018
Discussion open until: Jul 12, 2018
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