Abstract
The roller compacted concrete (RCC) dam has become one of the most competitive dam types due to its fast construction speed, low cost, and strong adaptability. However, the macroscale compaction test can hardly reflect the mesoscopic structure on the RCC’s rolling characteristics. According to the characteristics of RCC dam materials, a numerical discrete element method (DEM) is proposed in this paper, which is used to simulate the irregular shape and proportion of RCC aggregates. Moreover, a mesoscopic parameter inversion method based on the adaptive differential evolution (ADE) algorithm is proposed to enhance the efficiency of model contact parameters determination and overcome the inconvenience and time-consumption of conventional methods. Compared with the physical test, the simulation compression curve has good consistency with the physical test curve, and the proposed method can adequately reflect the physical and mechanical properties of RCC dam materials, which provides a basis for the subsequent research on the properties of RCC dam materials under different filling times.
Highlights
Roller compacted concrete (RCC) dam has become one of the most competitive dam types due to its fast construction speed, low cost, and strong adaptability [1,2,3]
The mesoscopic structure of RCC is closely related to its mechanical properties such as strength, impermeability, and frost resistance. e roller compaction tests on the macroscale commonly used in construction are difficult to reflect the effect of mesoscopic structure on the compaction characteristics of RCC
Only methods that can handle the discontinuous features of this material are generally suitable. erefore, it is necessary to find a numerical simulation method to study the rolling characteristics of RCC dam materials
Summary
Roller compacted concrete (RCC) dam has become one of the most competitive dam types due to its fast construction speed, low cost, and strong adaptability [1,2,3]. Mathematical Problems in Engineering e commercial discrete element particle flow code (PFC) [10] is an effective discrete element method (DEM) for analyzing the mesoscopic mechanical behavior of granular media materials, which is suitable for simulating the vibration compaction process of RCC materials with granular properties, as well as the interlayer aggregate movement and embedding problems. Based on the above mesoscale modeling approach, Liu and Zhang [12] simulated the compaction process of the RCC materials and analyzed the compaction mesoscopic mechanical characteristics reflected by particle motion and porosity using the PFC 3D software. Wang et al [15] used the DEM to simulate the fracture process of concrete specimens under compression All these studies provided valuable guidelines for developing a numerical simulation model for RCC materials. (3) Validation analysis was performed, which indicated that the RCC material simulated by this research was well conformed to the real RCC material mechanical behavior
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