Mechanical Behavior of Granular Particles

with Different Angularities

M.M. Mollanouri.Sh and Ali Aaghar Mirghasemi*
School of Civil Engineering, College of Engineering, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran
aghasemi@ut.ac.ir

Recent studies show that particle shape and angularity has considerable influence
on the mechanical behavior of granular materials. In order to numerical
investigation of the particle shape on mechanical behavior of granular particles, a
program that is based on Discrete Element Method (DEM) has been developed to
model semi-real shape of grains. In this way, the real shape of grain is modeled by
combining arbitrary number of overlapping spheres, which are connected to each
other in a rigid way. To evaluate the influence of angularity on mechanical
behavior of sand two assemblies of sands with different angularities containing
rounded grains and high angular grains are considered, and several triaxial tests
with different confining pressure and friction coefficient are performed on
assemblies. The results demonstrate that the angularity of grains is considerably
affecting the behavior of soil.

1 Introduction
Recent studies show that particles shape and angularity have considerable
influence on the mechanical behavior of granular materials such as sands [1-4]
conducted a comprehensive numerical study on the influence of particle shape and
angularity on engineering properties of granular materials. They carried out
several biaxial tests on assemblies of different angularity with different confining
pressure, friction coefficient, and void ratio. They concluded that under any
specified confining pressure, shear strength (or mobilized friction angle), dilation
and residual shear strength increase considerably with increasing angularity of
grains. Their results showed that shape and angularity of particle have
considerably influence on mechanical behavior of granular materials in two
dimensions. Holubec and DAppolonia [5] indicated by testing on sands with
varying particle shapes that granular materials with the same relative density could
have different mechanical behavior due to angularity. They suggested that the
variation of mechanical properties due to shape of particle could be of the same
order of magnitude as the variation of properties due to changes in relative
density, thus concluded that particle shape could be considered an index property
to correlate the properties of granular materials.
Q. Yang et al. (Eds.): Constitutive Modeling of Geomaterials, SSGG, pp. 431440.
Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013
springerlink.com

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M.M. Mollanouri. Sh and A.A. Mirghasemi

Furthermore, Rothenburg and Bathurst [6] reported the results of numerical

simulations of planar assemblies of elliptical particles. Packing simulations of the
initial assembly showed that the coordination numbers of the generated assemblies
increased with increasing eccentricity. Ting et al. [7] reported similar conclusion
from isotropic compression and biaxial shear test simulations on assemblies of
two-dimensional elliptical particles. Mirghasemi et al. [8] by numerical
simulations of polygon-shaped particle assemblies concluded that particle
angularity had an important effect on the compressibility and shear strength of the
granular media.
In this study irregular shapes of grains are presented to utilize in DEM
simulations in order to improve the results of simulation. In most cases of
modeling that have been applied so far, grain form is generally considered
elliptical, ellipsoidal, polygonal, etc., none of which, however, directly models any
irregularly shaped grain, hence will not project the expected mechanical behavior,
thus pointing to the need of direct modeling of grains with irregular shapes.
Several numerical triaxial tests with different confining pressures and friction
coefficients are conducted on the assemblies, and the internal friction angle and
maximum volumetric strain are calculated and discussed.

2 Particle Shape Consideration

To investigate the influence of angularity and shape of particles on the mechanical
behavior of granular materials, different assemblies with different size and shapes
are modeled, and triaxial tests with different parameters are carried out. In the
following sections, two categories of assemblies which are used in this research
are illustrated. Also, indexes to describe quantitatively the angularity and shape of
3D particles are defined.

2.1 Shape Descriptors in Three Dimensions

In order to have a quantitative comparison between the shapes of two series of
grains, two factors for every category of particles are considered. Threedimensional descriptors commonly used to characterize shape of particles include
the sphericity [9,10] and angularity index [11]. Sphericity, which shows the
deviation of the particle from sphere, is the ratio of surface area of a sphere of the
same volume as the shape, to actual surface area of the shape [9]. Krumbein [10]
defined the sphericity as the ratio of particle volume to that of the smallest
circumscribing sphere which is also applied in this paper. Another descriptor for
3D granular particles which shows the number and sharpness of the corners is
Angularity Index, which was described by Rao et al. [11]; in this description, three
2D images from three views are captured by image analysis procedure. Then the
angularity is calculated as a weighted average of all three views as follows:

Mechanical Behavior of Granular Particles with Different Angularities

433

Fig. 1. Calculation of particle angularity

in 2D [12]

AI particle =
Where,

Ang front .Areafront + Angtop .Areatop + Ang side .Areaside

Areafront + Areatop + Areaside

(1)

AI particle is the Angularity Index of the particle; the unit for AI is degree.

The angularity of a particle which was defined by Sukumaran and Ashmawy [12]
is explained in equation 2 and the angle of is demonstrated in Fig. 1.

i=1

i=1

A ng= ( i particle -180) 2 - ( i circle -180) 2

(2)

The average number of spheres which is used for making a particle, range and
average values of sphericity, and angularity index for two series of grains are
summarized in Table 1.
Table 1. Values of Sphericity and Angularity Index for two series of assemblies
Shape Description
Particles
group
High angular
grains
Rounded
grains

Average
number of
spheres

Sphericity
Range,%

Sphericity
Average,%

Ang. Index
Range,%

Ang. Index
Average,%

10

88-93

90.2

32-41

37.4

92-97

94.4

19-31

25.5

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M.M. Mollanouri. Sh and A.A. Mirghasemi

2.2 Granular Particles with Two Categories of Angularity

In this paper, two series of grains with different angularities are considered,
including high angular grains and rounded grains. To have a reasonable
comparison among assemblies, as shown in Fig. 2, each particle type has equal
diameter with different angularities. Therefore, each type of particle in every
group has the same diameter but its angularity index and sphericity is different.

(a)

Round grain

(b) High angularity

Fig. 2. Two different angularity Fig. 3. Grain size distribution
particles, (a) round grain, (b) high
angular grain

To simulate triaxial test numerically, a cubic assembly of particles was generated.

In this study 1000 grains, consisting 5 different types with equivalent diameter
ranging from 10 to 40 mm, were generated for each series of assembly. The grain
size distribution of assemblies is shown in Fig. 3. In this figure, equivalent diameter
is the diameter of the sphere which circumscribes each particle.

3 Simulated Tests
In order to consider the effects of different factors on mechanical behavior of
granular particles, two series of tests were conducted on assemblies with different
types of grains: (a) Tests with different confining pressures; (b) Tests with
different inter particle friction coefficients. In a triaxial test, the mobilized internal
friction angle of a cohesionless material can be determined by Equation (3) as a
function of major principal stress:

sin mobilized =

1 3
1 +3

(3)

Major Principal Stresses are determined on the basis of the average stress tensor
within an assembly.
The stress tensor of an assembly can be calculated by Equation (4) expressed
by Rothenburg [13]:

ij =

1
V

f
C

C
i

l jC

, i , j = 1, 3

(4)

Mechanical Behavior of Granular Particles with Different Angularities

In this equation

435

ij is stress tensor, V is the volume of the assembly, fiC is contact

force, and l j C is contact vector between two sphere elements of two grains that are
in contact with each other.
On the other hand, volumetric strain, v , can be expressed as the ratio between
volume of assembly at a specific strain,

v can be defined as:

v =

V, and the initial volume of assembly, V0.

V V 0
V0

(5)

3.1 Tests with Different Confining Pressures

The simulated tests were conducted in four stages. Initial assemblies are very loose; as
it has been mentioned in the previous sections, the program generates particles with no
contact. In stage two, in order to compact the initial loose assemblies, the generated
assemblies are subjected to a hydrostatic strain rate equal to 1.010-7. Compaction is
continued until the assembly attains a desired confining pressure i.e.0.15, 0.5, 1, 2, and
4 MPa. In stage three, zero strain rates in 10,000 cycles are applied in order to bring
the particles of each assembly to equilibrium. Afterwards, the assembly of particles is
prepared to apply final stage i.e. triaxial test. In the simulated triaxial test, the
horizontal stress is maintained constant and the vertical stress is increased by applying
deviator strain rate equal to 0.510-7.

3.2 Tests with Different Friction Coefficients

Parameters used in these simulated tests are reported in Table 2, excluding the friction
coefficient which is chosen variant. The first and the second stages of these tests are
similar to what is described in section 5.2. In stage 3, assemblies are subjected to
isotropic confining pressure equal to 1 MPa with various friction coefficients i.e. 0.1,
0.3, 0.5 and 0.7. Also, in the last stage, triaxial tests are simulated with different
friction coefficients with the deviator strain rate of 0.510-7.

4 Test Results
In order to have a comprehensive comparison, the results of simulated tests are
demonstrated in two types of graphs. The first graph shows the sine of the
mobilized friction angle (sinmobilized) versus axial strain (a ), and volumetric strain

(v ) versus axial strain (a ) is demonstrated in the second graph.

436

M.M. Mollanouri. Sh and A.A. Mirghasem

mi

4.1 Results of Tests with Different Confining Pressures

Porosity can be defined ass follows:

P
Porosity =
Where,

Vtotal

V total V s
V total

is the volum
me of cubic cell and

Vs

(66)
is the volume of particles in a

cubic cell.
The results of triaxiaal tests for assemblies with round grains in differennt
confining pressures, as a sample, are shown in Fig. 4. Fig. 5 shows thhe
comparisons among resullts of triaxial tests for two series of assemblies with thhe
confining pressure of 2 MPa. Variations of mobilized friction angle annd
volumetric strain rate at the
t axial strain of 20% with different confining pressurees
for high angular grains aree shown in Fig. 6.

Fig. 4. sinmobilized versus a for round

grains in different confining
g pressures and

= 0.5

a for two series of

3 = 2.0MPa and = 0.55

Fig. 5. Sinmobilized versus

assemblies in

Fig. 6. Mobilized fiction ang

gle and dilation in different confining pressure for high angullar
grains

Mechanical Behavior of Graanular Particles with Different Angularities

4337

The following results can

c be derived from above outputs:

As shown in Fig. 4 for high angular grains, the mobilized friction angle annd
dilation decrease while confining pressure increases; similar trends werre
observed for otherr assemblies. Fig. 6 shows this trend more obviously foor
both parameters in
n different confining pressures. The reason for reductioon
in both mobilized friction angle and dilation at higher confining pressurees
is that the higher confining pressures on the assemblies prevent dilationn;
therefore, it doesn
nt allow particles to move against each other to producce
anisotropy. Less anisotropy in the assembly provides less mobilizeed
friction angle (Rotthenburg and Bathurst (1992)).
As shown in Fig. 5,
5 the mobilized friction angle and maximum volumetrric
strain increase by
y increasing angularity. This trend is attributed to thhe
interlocking amon
ng particles in higher angularities. In grains with higgh
angularity, a signiificant interlocking among grains exists which leads tto
higher shear resistaance and dilation of the assembly during triaxial test.

Fig. 7. Mobilized fiction

n angle versus Fig. 8. Mobilized fiction angle verssus
angularity index in diffferent confining sphericity in different confining pressure
pressure

Figures. 7 and 8 show that by increasing angularity index and decreasinng

sphericity, the mobilized
m
friction angle increases. These figures alsso
demonstrate thaat mobilized friction angle decreases by increasinng
confining pressu
ure. This reduction is more apparent in higher confininng
pressures, especiially for the confining pressure of 4MPa.

4.2 Results of Tests with Different Friction Coefficients

The results of triaxial teests for assemblies with rounded grains with differennt
friction coefficients are sh
hown in Fig. 9 and Fig. 10. The results for all cases arre
summarized in Tables 2 and
a 3. Fig. 11 shows the variations of mobilized frictioon
angle and volumetric strain for high angular grains in different frictioon
coefficients.

438

M.M. Mollanouri. Sh and A.A. Mirghasem

mi

Fig. 9. Sinmobilized versus a for rounded

grains in different friction coefficients and

Fig. 10. v versus a for rounded angullar

grains in different friction coefficients annd

Fig. 11. Mobilized fiction an

ngle and dilation
in different friction coeffi
ficient for high
angular grains

Fig. 12. Mobilized friction angle versuus

angularity index in different frictioon
coefficient

3 = 1.0MPa

3 = 1.0MPa

Fig. 13. Mobilized fricttion angle versus sphericity in different friction coefficient

Mechanical Behavior of Granular Particles with Different Angularities

Table 2. (mobilized)max values for three series

of assemblies in different friction
coefficients and 3 = 1.0 MPa

Friction
coefficient
()
0.1
0.3
0.5
0.7

Dilation
value in
a=20%
High
angular
grains
18.3
34.6
38.0
40.2

Round
grains
12.9
25.4
28.1
28.9

439

Table 3. Dilation values in a=20% for

three series of assemblies in different
friction coefficients and 3 = 1.0 MPa

Friction
coefficient
()
0.1
0.3
0.5
0.7

Dilation
value in
a=20%
High
angular
grains
1.6%
3.8%
6.0%
7.1%

Round
grains
0.9%
1.9%
2.9%
4.1%

The following results are derived from the following figures and tables:

By comparing the values of mobilized friction angle in different friction

coefficients, it can be derived that the difference between friction angles
decreases by increasing friction coefficients (Fig. 12 and Fig. 13). The
main reason is that in granular particles which coefficient friction is less
than 0.3, the mobilized friction angle and dilation are less in comparison
to particles with higher friction coefficient.
As shown in Fig. 12 and Fig. 13, by increasing friction angle, the roles of
angularity and sphericity for increasing shear strength and dilation are
more significant. It demonstrates that in higher friction coefficients, the
interlocking between angular grains makes more powerful bonds. It can
be concluded that in low friction coefficients, the influence of angularity
is not significant, and the influence of angularity is more highlighted by
increasing friction coefficient.

5 Conclusion
Two categories of grains with different angularities and sphericities consisting of
1000 particles were generated and several triaxial tests with different confining
pressures and friction coefficients were performed. The results can be summarized
as follows:

Both mobilized friction angle and dilation have a positive correlation

with confining pressure in a constant angularity. This correlation is
more highlighted in high angular grains.
By increasing angularity in a specified confining pressure, mobilized
friction angle and dilation increase significantly.
Increasing angularity in higher friction coefficients is more effective to
increase shear strength and dilation of granular particles.

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M.M. Mollanouri. Sh and A.A. Mirghasemi

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