Computational Materials Science 29 (2004) 494498 www.elsevier.

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Micromechanical modelling of oval particulates subjected to bi-axial compression

S.J. Antony
a

a,*

, R.O. Momoh a, M.R. Kuhn

Department of Chemical Engineering, School of Process, Environmental and Materials Engineering, University of Leeds, Houldsworth Bldg, Room 2.42, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK b Department of Civil Engineering, University of Portland, Portland OR79203, USA Received 22 October 2003; accepted 8 December 2003

Abstract One of the questions that still remain unanswered among researchers dealing with granular materials is how far the particle shape aects the micro-macroscopic features of granular assemblies under mechanical loading. The latest advances made with particle instrumentation allow us to capture realistic particle shapes and size distribution of powders to a fair degree of accuracy at dierent length scales. Industrial applications often require information on the micromechanical behaviour of granular assemblies having dierent particle shapes and varying surface characteristics, which still remains largely unanswered. Traditionally, simulations based on discrete element method (DEM) idealise the shape of individual particles as either circular or spherical. In the present investigation, we analyse the inuence of particle shape on the shear deformation characteristics of two dimensional granular assemblies using DEM. We prepared the assemblies having nearly an identical initial packing fraction (dense), but with dierent basic shapes of the individual particles: (a) oval and (b) circular for comparison purposes. The granular assemblies were subjected to biaxial compression test. We present the evolution of macroscopic strength parameters and microscopic structural/ topological parameters during mechanical loading. We show that the micromechanical properties of granular systems are signicantly inuenced by the shape of the individual particles constituting the granular assemblies. 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Micromechanics; Shape eects; Micro-macroscopic properties; Particulate materials

1. Introduction Information on the shear deformation behaviour of granular materials is required in various engineering applications, such as in the geotech-

Corresponding author. Tel.: +44-1132332409; fax: +441132332405. E-mail address: s.j.antony@leeds.ac.uk (S.J. Antony).

nical, pharmaceutical, detergent, metals, ceramic and food industries. It is generally recognised that the individual properties of the constituent particles strongly inuence the macroscopic characteristics of a particulate medium. Investigations on the fundamental micromechanical and physical behaviour of particulate assemblies in terms single particle properties are of current interest (for example, [19]). In this study, we investigate the micro- and macroscopic characteristics of oval

0927-0256/$ - see front matter 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.commatsci.2003.12.007

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assemblies (e.g. representing alumina particles) subjected to bi-axial compression testing.

2. Simulations The simulations were carried out using DEM, which was originally developed by Cundall and Strack [10]. The advantage of using DEM to study granular materials is its ability to give more information about what happens inside the system. The method models the interaction between contiguous particles as a dynamic process and the time evolution of the particles is advanced using an explicit nite dierence scheme. A simple force mechanism was employed between contacting particles. Linear normal and tangential contact springs were assigned equal stiness, and slipping between particles would occur whenever the contact friction coecient of 0.5 was attained. More details on the numerical description of the basic shapes of the particles studied here can be found elsewhere [11,12]. Two assemblies have nearly identical initial packing fraction, but with two dierent basic shapes of the individual particles viz., circular and oblate (with h 30) (Fig. 1). The assemblies each contained 4096 particles with dense packings (coordination number 3.8 0.005 and solid fraction 0.82 0.005). The size distribution of the particles used in the assemblies is presented in Fig. 2, which

Fig. 2. Histogram of particle size distribution for the assemblies.

represents size by the average values of height and width of the particles. The particle assemblies were initially random, isotropic and homogeneous and the initial indentations were less than 0.02% of D50 . The assemblies were compacted from an initial sparse state by articially removing friction between particles and then isotropically reducing the area until the desired solid fraction was attained. At the end of isotropic compression, the microstructure of the samples was isotropic. During the bi-axial compression simulations (two dimensional), the height of the assembly was reduced at a constant rate (along the 22 direction), while maintaining constant horizontal stress r11 . The vertical strain was advanced in small increments of De22 1:0 106 , and several relaxation steps were performed within each increment. These measures minimized the transient inertial eects that would have otherwise biased the results of a presumed quasi-static loading.

2.1. Results 2.1.1. Macroscopic evolution of shear stress and void ratio Fig. 3 shows initial particle arrangement (before shearing) for both the circular and oval particulate systems. Fig. 4 shows the variation of normalised shear stress ratio q=p (q r2 r1 , p r2

Fig. 1. Illustrative diagrams of an oval shape particle.

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Fig. 3. Typical particle arrangement for (a) circular and (b) oval systems subjected to identical compressive strain.

1.00

0.60 0.40 0.20 0.00 0.00 -0.20 Circular Oval

Effective void ratio

0.80

0.02

0.04

0.06

0.08

0.10

0.24 0.23 0.22 0.21 0.2 0.19 0.18 0.17 0.16 0.15 0 0.02

Shear stress ratio, q/p

Cricular Oval

Compressive strain, - 22

0.04 0.06 0.08 Compressive Strain,-22

0.1

Fig. 4. Normalised shear stress ratio during bi-axial compression.

Fig. 5. Variation of eective void ratio during compression.

r1 =2) during the bi-axial compression of the assemblies. The circular particulate assembly attained the maximum value of q=p at an early stage of compression (with a fairly well dened peak) and then gradually decreased as the compression progressed. Although the maximum value of q=p obtained for the oval system is fairly identical to the circular system, it is obtained at a later stage of compression than the circular system. The dense oval system tends to attain an initial peak during the early stages of bi-axial compression. At the steady state (compressive strain greater than 0.05), the shear stress ratio for the oval system is higher than the circular particulate assembly. Fig. 5 shows the variation of eective void ratio of the assemblies (the solid area includes only the area of load-bearing particles) during compression. The eective void ratio of the assemblies increases with decreasing slope as the compression

progresses. It is also evident that the circular particle assembly dilates more than the oval assembly. 2.1.2. Eective co-ordination number and valance Fig. 6 shows the evolution of eective co-ordination number, which is considered as a measure of heterogeneity of the assembly during compression. The eective co-ordination number represents the average numbers of contacts per load-bearing particle. The eective co-ordination number decreases as the assembly is compressed. The eective co-ordination number attains a uniform value for compressive strain e22 greater than ca. 0.1. The steady state value of the eective co-ordination number for the oval assembly is higher than the circular assembly. Fig. 7 shows the variation of average valance of the assemblies during compression. Valence is the average number of contacts (edges) per contacting void cells (faces), the average valence used in this

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Effective coordination number
4.2 4 5.5 3.8 3.6 3.4 3.2 3 0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1 3.5 0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 Oval 6

497

Average valence

Circular

4.5

circular oval

Compressive strain, - 22

Fig. 6. Variation of eective co-ordination number during compression.

0.1

Compressive strain, - 22

Fig. 7. Variation of average valance during compression.

case includes only load-bearing contacts. It can be seen that the average valence of the void cells increases as the compaction progressed, with circular assembly having a higher average valence than the oval particulate assembly. The reduction in eective co-ordination number during compression resulted an increase in the average valance of the void cells throughout the compression. 2.1.3. Microtopology Fig. 8 shows the topological distribution of particle arrangements corresponding to Fig. 3. The topological association of particles are presented here as a planar graph. The assembly domain has been partitioned into numerous polygonal subdomains or void cells [13]. The corners (vertices) of each polygon are the centres of the particles and

the sides (edges) are the branch vectors between the particle centres. However, the resulting particle graphs presented in Fig. 8 include only those particles that are in contact with neighbouring particles and that participate in the load-bearing framework of the assembly. The non-participating particles (island, peninsula and pendant particles) are not represented in these plots. 2.1.4. Observations on the microfabrics of force networks Fig. 9 shows the fabric measures of the assemblies during compression. The distribution of contact orientations is characterised by a fabric tensor /ij , suggested by Satake [14] as

Fig. 8. Particle graphs (topology) showing polygonal microdomains for (a) circular and (b) oval systems subjected to identical compressive strain.

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2.00 1.80 1.60 1.40 1.20 1.00 0 0.02

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Circular Oval

0.04

0.06

0.08

0.1

Compressive Strain, -22

Fig. 9. Variation of fabric tensor of strong contacts during compression.

/ij hni nj i

M 1 X ni nj ; M 1

test. The maximum value of shear stress ratio q=p for the circular and oval particulate systems is fairly identical. However, the nature of the variation of shear stress ratio for both the assemblies during compression is signicantly dierent. During compression, the circular assembly tends to dilate more than the oval assembly. The topological and structural features of particulate systems are signicantly inuenced by the shape of the constituting particles considered in this study. Investigations are currently underway to probe the links between the structural orientation of the contact networks to the macroscopic strength characteristics of the particulate assemblies during compression, and the eect of dimensionality will also be reported in the future.

Fabric measure

1 Acknowledgements S.J.A. gratefully acknowledges the partial support provided by Royal Society, London (Grant Ref. 23913).

where M is the number of contacts in the representative volume element and the ni are the components of the unit normal vector at a contact between two particles. In the current study, we restrict Eq. (1) to a subset of the M contacts: the set of all contacts that had a greater than average normal contact force (strong contacts). The fabric measure plotted in Fig. 9 correspond to square root of the value of (/22 =/11 ). The initial isotropic fabric, which is %1, becomes greatly anisotropic and attains a value of about 1.5 for circular system and 1.6 for oval system. A comparison between Figs. 4 and 9 show a strong correlation between the macroscopic shear stress (q=p) distribution and the internal distribution of fabric ratio, i.e., the square root of (/22 =/11 ), contributed by the strong contacts in the assemblies during compression. We nd that, the relation between the shear stress ratio and the fabric network of strong contacts satises p the equation q=p % 1=2 /22 =/11 .

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3. Conclusion The inuence of particle shape on the shear deformation characteristics of circular and oval particulate systems having nearly identical solid fraction (dense) is investigated. The particulate systems were subjected to bi-axial compression