scholarly journals A numerical toolkit to understand the mechanics of partially saturated granular materials

2015 ◽  
Vol 770 ◽  
pp. 1-4 ◽  
Author(s):  
J.-N. Roux
Keyword(s):  
Granular Material ◽  
Phenomenological Models ◽  
Granular Materials ◽  
Lattice Boltzmann ◽  
Discrete Element ◽  
Mechanical Effect ◽  
Saturation Level ◽  
Partially Saturated ◽  
Mechanical Effects ◽  
Granular Assemblies

The mechanisms by which a wetting, non-saturating liquid bestows macroscopic cohesion and strength to a granular material are usually not accessible to micromechanical investigations for saturations exceeding the pendular regime of isolated menisci, easily studied by discrete element models (DEM). The paper by Delenne et al. (J. Fluid Mech., 2015, vol. 762, R5) exploiting a multiphase lattice Boltzmann approach, pioneers the simulation of the micromorphology and of the mechanical effects on grains of an interstitial liquid, in equilibrium with its vapour, for the whole saturation range. Interestingly, in accordance with some experiments and phenomenological models, the results suggest that the mechanical effect of capillary forces is maximized for some intermediate saturation level (near 40 % in the model), well beyond the pendular range. In general, the proposed simulation technique opens the way to many studies of partially saturated granular assemblies, for different saturation or imbibition processes and histories.

scholarly journals Mesoscale inertial transition in granular materials

2021 ◽  
Vol 249 ◽  
pp. 10004
Author(s):  
Adriane Clerc ◽  
Antoine Wautier ◽  
Stéphane Bonelli ◽  
François Nicot
Keyword(s):  
Kinetic Energy ◽  
Discrete Element Method ◽  
Granular Material ◽  
Granular Materials ◽  
Failure Mode ◽  
Discrete Element ◽  
Loading Path ◽  
Failure Patterns ◽  
Granular Assemblies ◽  
Failure State

Granular assemblies can experience complex failure patterns along a given loading path, with a distribution of ephemeral inertial events marked by local outbursts in kinetic energy. However, investigating such mechanisms appears to be necessary to understand how a certain failure mode develops in a granular material. Using a discrete element method, this study highlights several microstructure reorganizations before the specimen reaches a proper failure state. Meso structures have proven to be efficient to understand the elementary mechanisms responsible for these outbursts in kinetic energy. Strain–like and stress-like quantities are thus defined at a mesoscale and they are used to characterize the nucleation and propagation of these local microstructural events.

scholarly journals Porosity Prediction of Granular Materials through Discrete Element Method and Back Propagation Neural Network Algorithm

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. 1693
Author(s):  
Yu Liu ◽  
Miaomiao Li ◽  
Peifeng Su ◽  
Biao Ma ◽  
Zhanping You
Keyword(s):  
Neural Network ◽  
Granular Material ◽  
Granular Materials ◽  
Particle Shape ◽  
Back Propagation ◽  
Discrete Element ◽  
Back Propagation Neural Network ◽  
Network Algorithm ◽  
Neural Network Algorithm ◽  
Bpnn Model

Granular materials are used directly or as the primary ingredients of the mixtures in industrial manufacturing, agricultural production and civil engineering. It has been a challenging task to compute the porosity of a granular material which contains a wide range of particle sizes or shapes. Against this background, this paper presents a newly developed method for the porosity prediction of granular materials through Discrete Element Modeling (DEM) and the Back Propagation Neural Network algorithm (BPNN). In DEM, ball elements were used to simulate particles in granular materials. According to the Chinese specifications, a total of 400 specimens in different gradations were built and compacted under the static pressure of 600 kPa. The porosity values of those specimens were recorded and applied to train the BPNN model. The primary parameters of the BPNN model were recommended for predicting the porosity of a granular material. Verification was performed by a self-designed experimental test and it was found that the prediction accuracy could reach 98%. Meanwhile, considering the influence of particle shape, a shape reduction factor was proposed to achieve the porosity reduction from sphere to real particle shape.

scholarly journals Quantitative 3D imaging of partially saturated granular materials under uniaxial compression

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marius Milatz ◽  
Nicole Hüsener ◽  
Edward Andò ◽  
Gioacchino Viggiani ◽  
Jürgen Grabe
Keyword(s):  
Granular Materials ◽  
Uniaxial Compression ◽  
Water Clusters ◽  
Local Strain ◽  
Confining Pressure ◽  
Mechanical Effect ◽  
Compression Tests ◽  
Initial Water ◽  
Interfacial Areas ◽  
Membrane Effects

AbstractGauging the mechanical effect of partial saturation in granular materials is experimentally challenging due to the very low suctions resulting from large pores. To this end, a uniaxial (zero radial stress) compression test may be preferable to a triaxial one where confining pressure and membrane effects may erase the contribution of this small suction; however, volume changes are challenging to measure. This work resolves this limitation by using X-ray imaging during in situ uniaxial compression tests on Hamburg Sand and glass beads at three different initial water contents, allowing a suction-dependent dilation to be brought to the light. The acquired tomography volumes also allow the development of air–water and solid–water interfacial areas, water clusters and local strain fields to be measured at the grain scale. These measurements are used to characterise pertinent micro-scale quantities during shearing and to relate them to the measured macroscopic response. The new and well-controlled data acquired during this experimental campaign are hopefully a useful contribution to the modelling efforts—to this end they are shared with the community.

scholarly journals A frictional Cosserat model for the slow shearing of granular materials

2002 ◽  
Vol 457 ◽  
pp. 377-409 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. SRINIVASA MOHAN ◽  
K. KESAVA RAO ◽  
PRABHU R. NOTT
Keyword(s):  
Angular Velocity ◽  
Granular Material ◽  
Shear Layer ◽  
Granular Materials ◽  
Layer Thickness ◽  
Couette Flow ◽  
Velocity Fields ◽  
Cosserat Continuum ◽  
Cosserat Model ◽  
Cylindrical Couette Flow

A rigid-plastic Cosserat model for slow frictional flow of granular materials, proposed by us in an earlier paper, has been used to analyse plane and cylindrical Couette flow. In this model, the hydrodynamic fields of a classical continuum are supplemented by the couple stress and the intrinsic angular velocity fields. The balance of angular momentum, which is satisfied implicitly in a classical continuum, must be enforced in a Cosserat continuum. As a result, the stress tensor could be asymmetric, and the angular velocity of a material point may differ from half the local vorticity. An important consequence of treating the granular medium as a Cosserat continuum is that it incorporates a material length scale in the model, which is absent in frictional models based on a classical continuum. Further, the Cosserat model allows determination of the velocity fields uniquely in viscometric flows, in contrast to classical frictional models. Experiments on viscometric flows of dense, slowly deforming granular materials indicate that shear is confined to a narrow region, usually a few grain diameters thick, while the remaining material is largely undeformed. This feature is captured by the present model, and the velocity profile predicted for cylindrical Couette flow is in good agreement with reported data. When the walls of the Couette cell are smoother than the granular material, the model predicts that the shear layer thickness is independent of the Couette gap H when the latter is large compared to the grain diameter dp. When the walls are of the same roughness as the granular material, the model predicts that the shear layer thickness varies as (H/dp)1/3 (in the limit H/dp [Gt ] 1) for plane shear under gravity and cylindrical Couette flow.

Discrete element simulation of the behavior of bulk granular material during truck braking

2006 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 4-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shu‐chun Zuo ◽  
Yong Xu ◽  
Quan‐wen Yang ◽  
Y.T. Feng
Keyword(s):  
Granular Material ◽  
Discrete Element ◽  
Discrete Element Simulation ◽  
Element Simulation

Numerical study of sheared mobile polydisperse sediment beds with a coupled lattice Boltzmann - discrete element method

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christoph Rettinger ◽  
Sebastian Eibl ◽  
Ulrich Rüde ◽  
Bernhard Vowinckel
Keyword(s):  
Discrete Element Method ◽  
Lattice Boltzmann ◽  
Numerical Study ◽  
Experimental Studies ◽  
Discrete Element ◽  
Parallel Execution ◽  
Coupling Mechanism ◽  
Size Segregation ◽  
Minimum Diameter ◽  
Element Method

<p>With the increasing computational power of today's supercomputers, geometrically fully resolved simulations of particle-laden flows are becoming a viable alternative to laboratory experiments. Such simulations enable detailed investigations of transport phenomena in various multiphysics scenarios, such as the coupled interaction of sediment beds with a shearing fluid flow. There, the majority of available simulations as well as experimental studies focuses on setups of monodisperse particles. In reality, however, polydisperse configurations are much more common and feature unique effects like vertical size segregation.</p><p>In this talk, we will present numerical studies of mobile polydisperse sediment beds in a laminar shear flow, with a ratio of maximum to minimum diameter up to 10. The lattice Boltzmann method is applied to represent the fluid dynamics through and above the sediment bed efficiently. We model particle interactions by a discrete element method and explicitly account for lubrication forces. The fluid-particle coupling mechanism is based on the geometrically fully resolved momentum transfer between the fluid and the particulate phase. We will highlight algorithmic aspects and communication schemes essential for massively parallel execution.</p><p>Utilizing these capabilities allows us to achieve large-scale simulations with more than 26.000 densely-packed polydisperse particles interacting with the fluid. With this, we are able to reproduce effects like size segregation and to study the rheological behavior of such systems in great detail. We will evaluate and discuss the influence of polydispersity on these processes. These insights will be used to improve and extend existing macroscopic models.</p>

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