Influence of contact stiffnesses on the micromechanical characteristics of dense particulate systems subjected to shearing

摘要

When characterizing fine particles experimentally, it is a common practice to only measure the normal stiffness between particles and to assume that it is equal to the tangential stiffness. The impact of variations in the stiffness measurements upon the bulk characteristics of particulate systems remains unclear. Using computer simulations, the authors show that the variations in the contact stiffness ratio affect the micromechanical characteristics of nonspherical particulate systems more dominantly than the spherical particulate systems. Hence, attention must be paid to measure both the normal and tangential contact stiffnesses when characterizing nonspherical fine particulates to estimate their assembly characteristics.