Abstract
Suffusion is the selective erosion of the finest particles of a soil subjected to an internal flow. Among the four types of internal erosion and piping identified today, suffusion is the least understood. Indeed, there is a lack of micromechanical approaches for identifying the critical microstructural parameters responsible for this process. Based on a discrete element modeling of non cohesive granular assemblies, specific micromechanical tools are developed in a unified framework to account for the two first steps of suffusion, namely the grain detachment and the grain transport processes. Thanks to the use of an enhanced force chain definition and autocorrelation functions the typical lengths scales associated with grain detachment are characterized. From the definition of transport paths based on a graph description of the pore space the typical lengths scales associated with grain transport are recovered. For a uniform grain size distribution, a separation of scales between these two processes exists for the finest particles of a soil
Highlights
The microscale analysis of the grain detachment mechanism is underpinned by two governing ideas
The dual comment is that in the critical state, groups of loose particles bounded by force chains are larger than at the beginning of the triaxial test and that grain detachment is more likely to be observed in the critical state than in the initial state
Specific micromechanical tools are developed to investigate the susceptibility of a polydisperse assembly of spherical particles to grain detachment and grain transport
Summary
The microscale analysis of the grain detachment mechanism is underpinned by two governing ideas. Function C is defined for any vector h = (hx, hy, hz) as the joint probability that a point x and the translated point x + h simultaneously belong to chained particles: C: In this form, Cdecreases from to 0 as ||h|| goes from 0 towards +∞, and the rate of decrease provide a typical distance over which the microstructure considered is correlated. The following decrease in the vertical autocorrelation accounts for the destruction of force chains and for the stress softening regime observed classically for dense granular materials at large strain levels during triaxial tests
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