DEM Simulation of a Bio-Inspired Self-Burrowing Probe in Granular Materials
Publication: Geo-Congress 2023
ABSTRACT
Traditional soil penetration activities such as site investigation and pile driving are energy-intensive and typically cause significant disturbance to surrounding soils and the environment. In recent years, researchers have attempted to solve the abovementioned problems by developing self-burrowing tools and probes on the basis of biological inspiration. Animals such as razor clams are capable of efficiently burrowing into soils using a dual-anchor mechanism, which cyclically alternates penetrating the back (shell) and front (foot) anchors to achieve forward movement. Due to inherent complexities of the self-burrowing mechanism, the interaction between a clam-inspired probe and soil is not fully understood yet. This study employs models based on the discrete element method (DEM) to investigate this soil-structure interaction problem. The soil sample is filled with a scaled discrete quartz sand analogue. The self-burrowing behavior of the probe is fully modeled using force-control motion, which enables realistic interaction with the surrounding soil. The strategy of tip oscillation is also employed to reduce soil penetration resistance. The simulation results show that the self-burrowing probe can achieve significant advancement, especially when tip oscillation is used. Micromechanical observations such as contact force networks and displacement fields are also provided to better understand the interaction between the soil and the bio-inspired probe. This study provides meaningful guidance for future self-burrowing probe development.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this chapter.
REFERENCES
Arroyo, M., Butlanska, J., Gens, A., Calvetti, F., and Jamiolkowski, M. (2011). Cone penetration tests in a virtual calibration chamber. Géotechnique, 61(6), 525–531. https://doi.org/10.1680/geot.9.P.067.
Chen, Y., Khosravi, A., Martinez, A., and Dejong, J. (2021). Modeling the self-penetration process of a bio-inspired probe in granular soils. Bioinspiration and Biomimetics, 16(4), 46012. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-3190/abf46e.
Ciantia, M. O., Boschi, K., Shire, T., and Emam, S. (2018). Numerical techniques for fast DEM large-scale model generation. Engineering and Computational Mechanics. https://doi.org/10.1680/jencm.18.00025.
Huang, S., and Tao, J. (2020). Modeling Clam-inspired Burrowing in Dry Sand using Cavity Expansion Theory and DEM. Acta Geotechnica. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11440-020-00918-8.
Itasca, C. G. I. (2017). PFC — Particle Flow Code, Ver. 5.0. Minneapolis.
Martinez, A., Dejong, J. T., Jaeger, R. A., and Khosravi, A. (2020). Evaluation of self-penetration potential of a bio-inspired site characterization probe by cavity expansion analysis. Canadian Geotechnical Journal, 57(5), 706–716. https://doi.org/10.1139/cgj-2018-0864.
Martinez, A., DeJong, J., Akin, I., Aleali, A., Arson, C., Atkinson, J., and Zheng, J. (2021). Bio-inspired Geotechnical Engineering: Principles, Current Work, Opportunities and Challenges. Géotechnique, 1–48. https://doi.org/10.1680/jgeot.20.p.170.
McDowell, G. R., Falagush, O., and Yu, H. S. (2012). A particle refinement method for simulating DEM of cone penetration testing in granular materials. Geotechnique Letters, 2(7–9), 141–147. https://doi.org/10.1680/geolett.12.00036.
Ortiz, D., Gravish, N., and Tolley, M. T. (2019). Soft Robot Actuation Strategies for Locomotion in Granular Substrates. IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, 4(3), 2630–2636. https://doi.org/10.1109/LRA.2019.2911844
Sharif, Y., Brown, M., Cerfontaine, B., Davidson, C., Ciantia, M., Knappett, J., and Ottolini, M. (2020). Effects of screw pile installation on installation requirements and in-service performance using the Discrete Element Method. Canadian Geotechnical Journal.
Ting, J. M., Corkum, B. T., Kauffman, C. R., and Greco, C. (1989). Discrete numerical model for soil mechanics. Journal of Geotechnical Engineering, 115(3), 769–787. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)0733-9410(1989)115.
Trueman, E. R. (1967). The dynamics of burrowing in Ensis (Bibalvia). In Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Containing papers of a Biological character. Royal Society (Great Britain) (Vol. 166, pp. 459–476). https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.1967.0007.
Winter, V., Deits, R. L. H., Dorsch, D. S., Slocum, A. H., and Hosoi, A. E. (2014). Razor clam to RoboClam: Burrowing drag reduction mechanisms and their robotic adaptation. Bioinspiration and Biomimetics, 9(3). https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-3182/9/3/036009.
Zhang, N., Arroyo, M., Ciantia, M. O., Gens, A., and Butlanska, J. (2019). Standard penetration testing in a virtual calibration chamber. Computers and Geotechnics, 111(3), 277–289. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compgeo.2019.03.021.
Zhang, N., Ciantia, M. O., Arroyo, M., and Gens, A. (2021). A contact model for rough crushable sand. Soils and Foundations, (xxxx). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sandf.2021.03.002.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Geo-Congress 2023
Pages: 142 - 150
History
Published online: Mar 23, 2023
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.