Effect of grain roughness on strength, volume changes, elastic and dissipated energies during quasi-static homogeneous triaxial compression using DEM

Abstract

Aquasi-static homogeneous drained triaxial compression test on cohesionless sand under constant lateral pressure was simulated using a three-dimensional DEM model. Grain roughness was modelled by means of symmetric clusters composed of rigid spheres imitating irregular particle shapes. The effect of grain roughness on shear strength, dilatancy, kinetic, elastic and dissipated energieswas numerically analyzed. Some numerical results were compared with available experimental results. © The Author(s) 2012.