Numerical study of miniature penetrometer in granular material by discrete element method

Abstract

The resistance of driving a slender penetrometer into soil is often used for material characterization in geotechnical engineering. The penetrometer diameter is usually much larger than the mean grain size of soil and the resisting pressure is independent of the penetrometer size. For miniature penetrometers, however, the resisting pressure is known to show size dependence. In this paper, a numerical study of driving miniature penetrometer into polydisperse granulates is presented. The three dimensional numerical analyses are carried out based on the discrete element method. The relationships between resisting pressure and penetrometer diameter are obtained. The numerical results are compared with tests in the literature. Moreover, the effect of penetrometer geometry is also considered.