Tensile Strength of Wet Granular Materials

Abstract

CARR1 has explained the decrease in the tensile strength of wet granular materials with decreasing moisture content by assuming that the decrease in the number of liquid bridges, spanning the gaps between particles, outweighs the gain in strength of the remaining bridges as their volume is reduced. We have analysed this argument for a packing of equal spheres using our results for the properties of liquid bridges between equal spheres2 and for the spatial distribution of spheres in a random packing3. These have been combined with the theoretical results of Fisher4. © 1967 Nature Publishing Group.