Abstract
The granular skeleton state relates closely to the mechanical behavior of granular soils but its characterization remains an open challenge. This study aims to develop a novel method to quantify the skeleton state of binary granular soils with arbitrary relative density Dr. Inspired by a linear correlation between the maximum and minimum void ratios, the dual-skeleton packing model was extended to incorporate the effect of Dr. A standard procedure of determining the dual-skeleton index ψ at arbitrary Dr was proposed. Furthermore, a series of numerical binary soil samples with 27 PSDs were simulated in multiple Dr via discrete element method (DEM). The results indicated that the granular skeleton state experienced a typical three-phase evolution pattern of “coarse-dominated → transitional → fine-dominated” with increasing fc. Through the calculated ψ value, critical fc values of phase transition in skeleton state evolution for samples with multiple Dr and the ratio of maximum to minimum particle diameter Rd were unveiled. The micro-mechanical behaviors were observed to be strongly related to the variation of ψ value. Furthermore, a quantitative correlation between ψ and the stress contribution of fine particles was revealed. The simulation results demonstrated the dual-skeleton index ψ can serve as an indicator to characterize the micromechanical behavior of granular media.
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