Discrete Element Modeling of Cone Penetration Tests Incorporating Particle Shape and Crushing
Publication: International Journal of Geomechanics
Volume 15, Issue 6
Abstract
The effect of particle shape and particle crushing on the results of cone penetration testing (CPT) of granular materials in a calibration chamber has been studied using three-dimensional discrete element modeling. Simulating the whole chamber with a realistic particle size requires a large number of particles, which leads to a large computational time. Both 90° and 30° segments of a calibration chamber were used in this study to reduce computational time. The effect of particle shape was simulated by prohibiting particle rotation or using simple two-ball clumps. Prohibiting particle rotation was found to increase tip resistance significantly compared with free particle rotation, and replacing a single sphere with different shapes of simple two-ball clumps was also found to have an important effect on the tip resistance. Particle crushing was simulated during CPTs by replacing a broken particle with two new equal-sized smaller particles. The results showed that there was a considerable reduction in the tip resistance for the crushing model compared with the noncrushing model, and this reduction increased as the confining stress increased.
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Published In
International Journal of Geomechanics
Volume 15 • Issue 6 • December 2015
Copyright
© 2015 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Apr 10, 2014
Accepted: Oct 28, 2014
Published online: Mar 24, 2015
Discussion open until: Aug 24, 2015
Published in print: Dec 1, 2015
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