DEM study on energy allocation behavior in crushable soils

Detailed knowledge of particle-scale energy allocation behavior under the influence of particle breakage is of fundamental importance to the development of micromechanics-based constitutive models of sands. This paper reports original results of the energy input/dissipation of an idealized crushable soil using 3D DEM simulations. Particle breakage is modeled as the disintegration of synthetic agglomerate particles which are made up of parallel-bonded elementary spheres. Simulation results show that the initial specimen density and crushability strongly affect the energy allocation of the soil both at small and large strains. The major role of particle breakage, which itself only dissipates a negligible amount of input energy, is found to advance the soil fabric change and promote the interparticle friction dissipation. Particularly, at small strains, particle breakage disrupts the strain energy buildup and thus reduces the mobilized shear strength and dilatancy of a granular soil. At large strains where particle breakage is greatly reduced, a steady energy dissipation by interparticle friction and mechanical damping is observed. Furthermore, it is found that shear bands develop in most dense crushable specimens at large strains, but they are only weakly correlated to the anisotropy of the accumulated friction dissipation. © (2014) Trans Tech Publications, Switzerland.