Abstract
Animals such as worm lizards can effectively bury themselves in the ground for survival. The burial behavior is realized due to the head oscillation of the reptiles using different strategies. It is hypothesized that the periodic penetration process generated from the anterior part of the animal reduces penetration resistance because it breaks the local force chains in the soil. In this paper, the three-dimensional discrete element method (DEM) modeling method was used to validate this hypothesis to investigate the interaction between a penetrator and the granular material at different scales. The penetrator was simplified as a three-body structure: an oscillating cone, a joint, and a cylindrical body. It was then penetrated through the soil sample vertically with different oscillation velocities. The results show that the oscillation movement can significantly reduce the penetration resistance force. Furthermore, the force chain network of the soil sample was investigated, and comparisons were made among cases, which shed light on the fundamental mechanism of the reduction effect.
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