Experimental and numerical study of sand–steel interfaces

Abstract

AbstractExperimental and numerical studies on and sand–steel interfaces are presented. Emphasis is laid on the effect of boundary conditions of the whole system and of localized deformation. The experiments with different roughness of steel surface, sand density, normal stress and grain size are carried out in a plane strain apparatus, a parallely guided direct shear apparatus and in a planar silo model with a movable bottom and parallel steel walls. During the test in the plane strain apparatus the localized zone is observed with the help of X‐rays. The results indicate a significant effect of wall roughness and boundary conditions of the whole system on the wall friction angle and the thickness of the localized zone along the steel surface.An elastoplastic constitutive model established within the framework of a Cosserat continuum, capable of describing isotropic hardening, softening and dilatancy, is implemented in a finite element code. The model differs from the conventional theory of plasticity due to the presence of Cosserat rotation and couple stress using the mean grain diameter as the characteristic length. Finite element simulations of simple shear tests are presented. The additional boundary condition along the steel plate, characteristic of the Cosserat continuum, allows for modelling the different roughness of the steel plate with consideration of grain rotations. A comparison between the numerical calculations and the experimental results shows acceptable agreement.