DEM investigation of fracture characteristic of calcareous sand particles under dynamic compression

Abstract

Calcareous sand as one kind of fragile geotechnical materials, however it is often under dynamic loading in engineering. In this study, discrete elements method (DEM) simulation was used to investigate the fracture characteristics of single and contacting spherical calcareous sand particles under dynamic compression. Calcareous Sand particle was simulated by cluster made up of elemental ball. The DEM models included two kinds of particle arrangements with one and five particles bounded in a cylindrical wall, and the dynamic compression loading were applied by a drop hammer made of clumps. The numerical simulation results of single particle under dynamic compression included stress-strain relation and Weibull distribution were coincide with the experimental results. For five particles numerical model, grain size distribution was obtained for all five cluster to differentiating the degree of breakage of particles in different positions. The transfer of force between particles was also exposed through the observation of the force chain evolution during compression.