Contact Transience during Slow Loading of Dense Granular Materials
Publication: Journal of Engineering Mechanics
Volume 143, Issue 1
Abstract
The irregularity of particle motions during quasi-static deformation is investigated using discrete element (DEM) simulations of sphere and sphere-cluster assemblies. A total of three types of interparticle movements are analyzed: relative motions of particle centers, relative motions of material points of two particles at their contact, and the traversal of contacts across the surfaces of particles. Motions are a complex combination of rolling, sliding, and elastic distortion at the contacts, and all motions are highly irregular and variant, qualities that increase with increasing strain. The relative motions of particle centers diverge greatly from those of an affine displacement of the particles. The motions of the nonconvex sphere-cluster particles were more regular that those of the spheres. The paper also investigates the effect of the distance between two remote particles and their pair-wise relative displacements. Even for particle pairs separated by more than six intermediate particles, the relative motions do not conform with the mean deformation (affine) field. Force chains are shown to be transient features, which survive only briefly across elapsed strains.
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Acknowledgments
The author gratefully acknowledges productive discussions of this work with Dr. WaiChing Sun.
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Published In
Journal of Engineering Mechanics
Volume 143 • Issue 1 • January 2017
Copyright
© 2015 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Apr 7, 2015
Accepted: Jul 6, 2015
Published online: Aug 12, 2015
Discussion open until: Jan 12, 2016
Published in print: Jan 1, 2017
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