Abstract
Inter-particle contact is an important grain-scale characteristic of granular materials that essentially governs their macro-scale mechanical response. In the current study, the evolution of inter-particle contacts (i.e., the contact gain, contact loss and contact movement) within a dry glass beads sheared under a low confining pressure is investigated. The test is carried out in a miniature triaxial apparatus, and high-resolution synchrotron X-ray micro-tomography is used to scan the sample for the full-field CT images in different loading stages. A series of image processing and analysis techniques, in combination with a particle-tracking approach, is used to detect the inter-particle contacts and determine the contact gain, loss and movement during each shear increment. The effects of the contact gain and loss, as well as the contact movement on the fabric evolution of the sample are examined. It is found that they are two competing factors in determining the fabric anisotropy evolution.
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Acknowledgement
This study was supported by the General Research Fund No. CityU 11272916 from the Research Grant Council of the Hong Kong SAR, Research Grant No. 51779213 from the National Science Foundation of China, Shenzhen Basic Research Grant No. JCYJ20150601102053063, and the BL13W beam-line of Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility (SSRF). The authors would like to thank Prof. Matthew R. Coop in University College London (formerly City University of Hong Kong) for his help with the development of the triaxial apparatus. The authors also appreciate Prof. Mingjing Jiang in Tongji Univerisity for the help with the in-situ test for this study.
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Cheng, Z., Wang, J. (2018). Evolution of Granular Contact Gain, Loss and Movement Under Shear Studied Using Synchrotron X-ray Micro-tomography. In: Giovine, P., Mariano, P., Mortara, G. (eds) Micro to MACRO Mathematical Modelling in Soil Mechanics. Trends in Mathematics. Birkhäuser, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99474-1_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99474-1_8
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