Discrete Element Simulation of Particle Crushing in 1-D Compression

Abstract

In this study, discrete element method is used to investigate the behavior of one-dimensional compression at high pressure. The breakage of a particle due to the multiple contacts is decided by the octahedral shear stress within the particle and a Weibull distribution of strengths. A multigenerational approach without using agglomerates is employed to model particle crushing, and a spawning procedure with volume compensation is applied. Effects of different initial void ratio, and the influence of particle crushing on the slope of the normal compression line were investigated. Evolution of distribution of normalized octahedral shear stress \( (q^{{\prime }} ) \) and its influence on particle crushing were used to analyze macroscopic behavior of samples. At the initial state of loading, \( q^{{\prime }} \) induced within each particle in the looser sample spreads out across a larger scope at the same vertical stress compared with denser samples. As particles inside samples begin to crush massively, statistical dispersion of \( q^{{\prime }} \) inside samples begins to increase for denser samples and achieve maximum at the failure stress and then statistical dispersion of \( q^{{\prime }} \) declines sharply when the vertical stress surpass the failure point for all samples.