DEM modelling of particle crushing of single carbonate sand using the improved bonded particle model

Abstract

Carbonate sands have complex particle morphology and abundant intra-particle pores, influencing their mechanical beahviours. This paper presents a detailed modelling procedure for single-particle crushing of carbonate sands with different shapes. The particles were scanned, and their realistic profiles were simplified using a curvature-based simplification technique before being imported into the DEM program. An improved bonded particle model using coplanar Voronoi polyhedrons as cells was adopted, and the internal porosity of carbonate sands, which follows a Weibull distribution, was modelled by randomly removing internal cells. The effects of local damping and loading rate on crushing responses are discussed and their values are carefully determined. Four loading stages were observed during platen compression. Particles with different shapes experienced varying degrees of tension and shear failure in internal bonds and exhibited different probabilities of splitting, explosive, and chipping failures. The work presented lays the groundwork for subsequent simulations of carbonate assemblies.