Abstract
Mechanoluminescent materials have the property of emitting light when they are mechanically deformed. The paper deals with the potential use of these active substances to reveal interparticle contact force networks in granular media under mechanical loading. Preliminary uniaxial tensile tests were first performed on two types of longitudinal specimens for comparison purposes: pure epoxy resin and epoxy resin containing mechanoluminescent powders. Stress-strain curves showed that the powder acted as a reinforcement, but fractographic analysis by SEM revealed that debonding occurred between the epoxy matrix and powder grains during mechanical loading. Various two-dimensional cohesionless granular systems were then studied, using mechanoluminescent cylinders subjected to compression. Whereas uniaxial tensile tests featured homogeneous light emission, localized mechanoluminescence intensities were revealed in the contact zones between cylinders. The study shows that mechanoluminescent materials open perspectives for the identification of interparticle contact intensities in granular media.
Highlights
Granular materials are omnipresent in our everyday life and in many industrial fields
The study showed that mechanoluminescence is a physical phenomenon that could be used advantageously for the micromechanical analysis of granular materials:
Let us recall that the distribution of interparticle contacts is usually split into a strong network and a weak network as a function of the contact force intensity [45]
Summary
Granular materials are omnipresent in our everyday life and in many industrial fields They are composed of grains with a wide variety of particle sizes and shapes, as well as of constitutive materials. Granular materials feature complex mechanical behaviors that differ from common solids, liquids, and gases [1]. Their macroscopic response is governed by the interaction forces transmitted through the contacts between particles. A highly inhomogeneous network of interparticle forces is a unique characteristic of discrete media subjected to a macroscopic loading [2]. This explains the wide range of phenomena observed in these materials. Some experimental approaches are available, in particular full-field measurement techniques
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