Influence of liquid bridges on the mechanical behaviour of polydisperse granular materials

Abstract

SUMMARYWe investigate a polydisperse granular material in which the particle interactions are governed by a capillary force law. The cohesion force for a grain-pair with unequal diameters is expressed as an explicit function of the inter-particle distance and the volume of the liquid bridge. This analytical relation is validated by experiments on a reference material. Then, it is completed by a rupture criterion and cast in the form of a force law that accounts for solid contact, capillary force and rupture characteristics of a grain-pair. Finally, in order to evaluate the influence of capillary cohesion on the macroscopic behaviour, radial and axial compression tests on cylindrical assemblies of wet particles are simulated using a 3D distinct element method.

A multiphase constitutive modeling framework for unsaturated soil behavior

“…The second term in (21) is the grain-grain capillary interaction f cap which is the solution of Laplace equation (Soulie et al 2006). Closed form exact solutions do not exist and a range of approximated solutions are given in the literature (e.g.…”

“…Closed form exact solutions do not exist and a range of approximated solutions are given in the literature (e.g. Lian et al 1993;Soulie et al 2006;and Richefeu et al 2006). They have been used extensively for DEM simulations.…”

DEM study on the interaction between wet cohesive granular materials and tools

“…The models in Category II are constructed by bottom-up approach in which the cohesive force is modeled based on the physics of liquid bridges at the microscopic particle-level. Large numbers of models fall into this category (e.g., Muguruma et al [3], GrĘger et al [4], Soulié et al [5] and Richefeu et al [6]). The models in Category III are by top-down approach, the cohesive force at the microscopic particle-level is modeled from macroscopic characteristics of materials (Utili and Nova [7] and Jiang et al [8]).…”

Force transmission in dry and wet granular media

“…1. The capillary force can be calculated by integrating the Laplace-Young equation [26][27][28][29]. However, for efficient MD simulations, we need an explicit expression of f c n as a function of the liquid bond parameters.…”