Interface Behavior of Granular Soils

Interface shear zones between particulate materials and continuum elements of man-made or natural materials have not been traditionally considered as shear bands. However, the results of recent micro-scale experimentation and numerical simulations have shown that they are indeed well developed partial shear bands. Further, these studies have indicated that significant similarities can be identified between these partial shear bands and what are more traditionally considered to be shear bands that evolve wholly within particulate materials. This paper presents results from physical and numerical experiments that suggest there is significant merit to this opinion. The physical experiments include quantitative analysis of the particle deformation following shear adjacent to continuum surfaces of different roughness as well as analyses of sand specimens sheared to different global strain levels. Complimentary 2-D Discrete Element Method modeling of particulate-continuum surface interfaces illustrates this parallel behavior.