A breakage matrix methodology to predict particle size evolution of calcareous sands

Abstract

Breakage-induced evolution of particle size distribution (PSD) will greatly affect the mechanical behavior of granular materials, and has been an important concern in geotechnical engineering. This paper presents a breakage matrix approach to investigate the evolution of PSD with detailed breakage information of each single-sized particles via conducting one-dimensional compression tests on dyed calcareous sands with different initial conditions. The breakage of each single-sized particles of soil samples with multi-sized particles under different initial conditions was analysed by the PCAS image recognition technologies. It has been found that the breakage-induced PSD of each single-sized particles of the soil samples tends to be fractally distributed, regardless of their initial PSDs. Furthermore, the degree of particle breakage of each single-sized particles is linearly related with the input work per unit volume. Finally, the proposed model establishes the breakage matrices of both uniform and gap-graded calcareous sands, which demonstrates its satisfactory performance.