Mechanics of Granular Materials: Experimentation and Simulations for Determining the Compressive and Shear Behaviors of Sand at Granular and Meso Scales.

摘要

We present the results of experiments conducted to study the compressive and shear behavior of sand. Static and dynamic studies on the compression of sand grains were conducted. Nanoindentation was performed on single grains on sand of different sizes in order to determine the elastic and fracture properties of individual sand grains. Finite Element method (FEM) was used to solve the inverse problem so as to obtain the material properties from the load-displacement curves obtained from nanoindentation experiments. We also report the results of quasi-static compression tests conducted on sand held in a passive confinement. An in-house built compression fixture enabled the compression of sand grains up to axial stresses as high as 3 GPa.