Numerical Simulation of Granite Sawing by Discrete Element Method
Granite is a kind of typical discrete material, which experiences from continuous deformation stage, discontinuous deformation stage to fracture stage under sawing forces. Using discrete element method (DEM) to study the process of sawing granite will help us to understand the removal mechanism of granite from the microscopic point of view. In this paper, numerical uniaxial compression and three-point bending tests were conducted to determine the microscopic parameters of the granite specimen firstly, and then simulation was performed for sawing of the specimen. The sawing process, deformation characteristics of granite and the effect of initiation and propagation of cracks on fracture process of granite were investigated. The emphasis was laid on analyzing the variation of sawing forces under different sawing parameters. The simulation results agree well with that of experiments, indicating that DEM can reflect the external macroscopic change of granite by changing the internal microscopic structure. The conclusions in this study would be useful to the modeling of sawing processes and engineering applications.