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Effect of micro and macro parameters in 3D modeling of grain crushing

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Abstract

Coarse granular materials exhibit important grain breakage in civil engineering structures, making it more complicated to predict the settlement and collapse of structures. A three-dimensional numerical model is presented using the discrete element method (Non-Smooth Contact Dynamics method). Polyhedral grains are generated, divided into tetrahedral subgrains and glued together using a cohesive law. Samples of breakable grains are subjected to oedometric compression where grains interact via contact and friction processes. Multiple geometrical and physical parameters are tested to analyze the response on the macroscopic and microscopic scales. The tendencies found show the ability of the model to represent the real material’s behavior.

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Acknowledgements

Authors thank Guilhem Mollon of LaMCoS Lyon for the advices and fruitful discussions and Frédéric Dubois of LMGC Montpellier for the assistance in running the LMGC\(^{90}\) software. Authors also thank Christophe Pera of the University of Lyon for the technical assistance that allowed the use of the P2CHPD computation server. Authors also want to thank the editor and the reviewers for their careful reading, comments, guidance and for the relevant references given.

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  1. Univ. Lyon, INSA-Lyon, GEOMAS, F-69621, Villeurbanne Cedex, France

    François Nader, Claire Silvani & Irini Djeran-Maigre

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  1. François Nader
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  2. Claire Silvani
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  3. Irini Djeran-Maigre
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Correspondence to Claire Silvani.

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Nader, F., Silvani, C. & Djeran-Maigre, I. Effect of micro and macro parameters in 3D modeling of grain crushing. Acta Geotech. 14, 1669–1684 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11440-019-00860-4

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