Generation of a realistic 3D sand assembly using X-ray micro-computed tomography and spherical harmonic-based principal component analysis

Three-dimensional particle morphology is a significant problem in the discrete element modeling of granular sand. The major technical challenge is generating a realistic 3D sand assembly that is composed of a large number of random-shaped particles containing essential morphological features of natural sands. Based on X-ray micro-computed tomography data collected from a series of image processing techniques, we used the spherical harmonics (SH) analysis to represent and reconstruct the multi-scale features of real 3D particle morphologies. The SH analysis was extended to some highly complex particles with sharp corners and surface cavities. We then proposed a statistical approach for the generation of realistic particle assembly of a given type of sand based on the principle component analysis (PCA). The PCA aims to identify the major pattern of the coefficient matrix, which is made up of the SH coefficients of all the particles involved in the analysis. This approach takes into account the particle size effect on the variation of particle morphology, which is observed from the available results of micro-computed tomography and QICPIC analyses of sand particle morphology. Using the aforementioned approach, two virtual sand samples were generated, whose statistics of morphological parameters were compared with those measured from real sand particles. The comparison shows that the proposed approach is capable of generating a realistic sand assembly that retains the major morphological features of the mother sand. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.