Micro-mechanical study of stress path and initial conditions in granular materials using DEM

Abstract

The macroscale response of granular materials under different loading conditions stems from the alteration of micromechanical properties during loading. Previous studies have used either physical experiments or discrete element method simulations to explore the effect of initial conditions and stress path on granular materials. However, microscale studies are not sufficient, especially for various loading paths. We study micromechanics of granular materials using the stress-force-fabric (SFF) relationship for a better understanding of the behavior of granular materials. Triaxial compression and extension tests are conducted on samples containing 1000 spherical particles, with periodic boundaries, and the effect of initial porosity is studied. In the next step, using the SFF relationship, we study the effect of anisotropic consolidation ratio. In addition to providing an appropriate explanation for shear strength out of evolution of anisotropy coefficients, our results show that anisotropic consolidation does not affect the micromechanical properties of granular materials in a way to change mobilized friction angle of sample at failure point.