Comparing the effects of interparticle friction coefficient and intermediate stress ratio on critical-state DEM simulations using Delaunay triangulations

¹ Institute for Infrastructure and Environment, School of Engineering, The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH9 3JL, UK
² Department of Geotechnical Engineering, Tongji University, 1239 Siping Road, Shanghai 200092, China
³ Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Skempton Building, Imperial College London, London SW7 2AZ, UK

^* Corresponding author: k.hanley@ed.ac.uk

Published online: 30 June 2017

Abstract

Strong force chains form when any granular material is subjected to load. A prior study used Delaunay triangulations to investigate the role of interparticle friction coefficient, μ, in stabilising the strong force chains [1]. In this follow-on paper, the effects of μ and the intermediate stress ratio, b, are compared. Numerical samples were sheared triaxially until critical state was attained. The contact networks and Delaunay triangulations of the particle centroids were both obtained at the end of each simulation. As μ is increased, the numbers of contacts in the contact networks decrease consistently. The numbers of edges, faces or tetrahedra in the Delaunay triangulations all increase with increasing μ up to 0.25 and become approximately constant thereafter. Changing b has no significant effect. The percentage of faces in the triangulation comprising three contacts shows a linearly-decreasing trend with increasing angle of shearing resistance. This is because only orthogonal loads are applied. Triangular structures require larger lateral supporting forces to maintain their stability than columnar structures when subjected to an axial load; hence, σ₃′ is expected to be larger relative to σ₁′ when triangular motifs are more prevalent. An increased proportion of triangular structures therefore leads to a lower ϕ_cv′.