Percolating contacts network and force chains during interface shear in granular media
File(s)
Published version
Author(s)
Patino-Ramirez, Fernando
O'Sullivan, Catherine
Dini, Daniele
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
The concept of force chains transmitting stress through granular materials is well established; however identification of individual force chains and the associated quantitative analysis is non-trivial. This paper proposes two algorithms to (1) find the network of percolating contacts that control the response of loaded granular media, and (2) decompose this network into the individual force chains that comprise it. The new framework is demonstrated considering data from discrete element method simulations of a ribbed interface moving against a granular sample. The subset of contacts in the material that transfers load across the sample, namely the percolating contact network (G perc), is found using the maximum flow algorithm. The resulting network is fully-connected and its maximum flow value corresponds to the force percolating the system in the direction normal to the ribbed wall. G perc re-orientates in response to the ribbed interface movement and transmits 85–95% of the stress, with only 40–65% of the contacts in the sample. Then, is split into individual force chains using a novel implementation of the widest path problem. Results show that denser materials with increased force-chain centrality promote a higher density of force chains, which results in a higher macro-scale strength during interface shearing. The contribution of force chains in the network is revealed to be highly centralized, composed by a small set of strong and long-lived force chains, plus a large set of weak and short-lived force chains.
Date Issued
2023-05-01
Date Acceptance
2023-02-05
Citation
Granular Matter, 2023, 25 (2)
ISSN
1434-5021
Publisher
Springer
Journal / Book Title
Granular Matter
Volume
25
Issue
2
Copyright Statement
© The Author(s) 2023. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
License URL
Identifier
https://www.webofscience.com/api/gateway?GWVersion=2&SrcApp=PARTNER_APP&SrcAuth=LinksAMR&KeyUT=WOS:000959640400001&DestLinkType=FullRecord&DestApp=ALL_WOS&UsrCustomerID=a2bf6146997ec60c407a63945d4e92bb
Subjects
CONE PENETRATION
CPT
Discrete element method
EVOLUTION
Fabric
Materials Science
Materials Science, Multidisciplinary
Mechanics
Network analysis
Physical Sciences
Physics
Physics, Applied
RESISTANCE
Science & Technology
STATE
Stress mobilisation
structure of soils
Technology
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
ARTN 31
Date Publish Online
2023-03-23