Effect of flaws on the stress wave propagation in particulate aggregates: Near and far field observations

Abstract

An experimental study is conducted using dynamic photoelasticity and strain gage techniques to investigate transient stress fields in aggregate assemblies of circular disks. In particular, attention is focused on the effect of damage and damage growth in the particles on the dynamic load transfer process. The experimental data are analyzed to obtain the wave velocity, contact load profiles, peak load attenuation, wave dispersion and other changes in the stress fields as the dynamic load transfer process takes place. Both near and far field effects due to the presence of a flaw on the load transfer process are studied. The results show that the size and the orientation of the flaw greatly influence the load transfer process locally. However, in the far field the flaw only affects the attenuation of the peak loads without changing the wavelength of the loading pulse.