Numerical and Experimental Investigations of the Influence of Grain Size on the Compressibility of Sand–EPS Mixtures

Influence of Loading History and Soil Type on the Normal Contact Behavior of Natural Sand Grain-Elastomer Composite Interfaces

“…However, because of the complex nature of soil–grain–rubber interactions, which heavily control the bulk behavior of these granular composites, there are still many unresearched areas, especially in the analysis of these binary materials at the micromechanical level and multi-scales [ 46 , 48 , 49 , 50 ]. Similar to the behavior of other binary materials composed of rigid and soft grains, for example, sand–expanded polystyrene beads (sand–EPS) [ 51 , 52 , 53 ], the investigation into the (bulk) constitutive behavior of sand–rubber mixtures necessitates an understanding of the way viscoelastic (soft) grains interact with brittle-to-ductile (rigid) grains, which can help researchers to develop multi-scale models in the analysis of these granular composites. As there exists a gap in the literature by means of fundamental studies that look into the problem of rigid–soft grain interaction at the small-scale based on laboratory observations, the present work attempted to provide a new contribution in this direction.…”

“…Thus, understanding and modeling the contact behavior of composite sand–rubber interfaces is essential to be obtained through grain-scale experimental studies, which was one of the major motivations behind this work. Even though previous studies using DEM attempted to provide insights into the fundamental mechanisms that control the mechanical behavior of binary systems composed of rigid and soft grains, including sand–rubber [ 56 , 57 , 63 , 64 , 65 , 66 , 67 ], as well as sand–expanded polystyrene beads [ 51 , 68 ], there has been reported much less progress in terms of laboratory studies at the grain-scale [ 46 , 49 ]. Especially the works by Li et al [ 46 ] and He et al [ 49 ] had a major focus on the interparticle coefficient of friction and the constitutive behavior in the shearing (or tangential) direction of sand–rubber composite interfaces.…”