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DEM analysis of the onset of flow deformation of sands: linking monotonic and cyclic undrained behaviours

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Abstract

This study explores the link between the monotonic and cyclic undrained behaviour of sands using the discrete element method (DEM). It is shown that DEM can effectively capture the flow deformation of sands sheared under both monotonic and cyclic undrained loading conditions. When subjected to cyclic shearing, flow-type failure is observed for a loose sample, while cyclic mobility is observed for a dense sample. A strong correlation between the monotonic and cyclic loading behaviour that has been revealed experimentally is also confirmed in DEM simulations: (a) flow deformation occurs in the compressive loading direction when the cyclic stress path intersects the monotonic compression stress path prior to the monotonic extension stress path, and vice versa; (b) the onset of flow deformation in q–\(p^{\prime }\) space is located in the zone bounded by the critical state line and the instability line determined from monotonic simulations. Hill’s condition of instability is shown to be effective to describe the onset of flow failure. Micro-mechanical analyses reveal that flow deformation is initiated when the index of redundancy excluding floating particles drops to below 1.0 under both monotonic and cyclic loading conditions. Flow deformation induced by either monotonic or cyclic loading is characterized by an abrupt change of structural fabric which is highly anisotropic. The reason why the dense sample dilated during monotonic loading but showed cyclic mobility (temporary liquefaction) during cyclic loading is attributed to the repeating reversal of loading direction, which leads to the periodic change of microstructure.

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Abbreviations

CSR:

Cyclic stress ratio

D r :

Relative packing density

d 2 W :

Second-order work

e 0 :

Initial void ratio

f :

Sliding fraction

f n :

Normal contact force

f t :

Shear/tangential contact force

I R :

Index of redundancy

\(I_{\text{R}}^{\text{NR}}\) :

Index of redundancy excluding rattlers

m, n :

Fitting parameters of the CSR-NIL relationship

N :

Number of loading cycles

N c :

Total number of contacts

N IF :

Number of loading cycles to flow failure

N p :

Total number of particles

\(p^{\prime }\) :

Mean effective stress

q :

Deviatoric stress

q cyc :

Cyclic deviatoric stress

t :

Running time

μ :

Inter-particle friction coefficient

dε v :

Volumetric strain increment

dε q :

Deviatoric strain increment

\(\sigma_{1}^{\prime }\) :

Major principal stress

\(\sigma_{3}^{\prime }\) :

Minor principal stress

\(\sigma_{3,0}^{\prime }\) :

Initial confining pressure

\(\varPhi_{d}\) :

Deviatoric fabric

\(\varPhi _{ij}\) :

Fabric tensor

\(\varPhi _{1,2,3}\) :

Major, intermediate, minor principal fabrics

ω :

Cyclic loading angular frequency

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Acknowledgement

This research was funded by the Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51509186).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geotechnical Engineering, Tongji University, 1239 Siping Road, Shanghai, 200092, China

    Xin Huang & Zixin Zhang

  2. Key Laboratory of Geotechnical Engineering, Ministry of Education, 1239 Siping Road, Shanghai, 200092, China

    Xin Huang & Zixin Zhang

  3. Department of Civil Engineering, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong, China

    Chung-yee Kwok

  4. Institute for Infrastructure and Environment, School of Engineering, The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, EH9 3JL, UK

    Kevin J. Hanley

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  1. Xin Huang
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  2. Chung-yee Kwok
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  4. Zixin Zhang
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Correspondence to Xin Huang.

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Huang, X., Kwok, Cy., Hanley, K.J. et al. DEM analysis of the onset of flow deformation of sands: linking monotonic and cyclic undrained behaviours. Acta Geotech. 13, 1061–1074 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11440-018-0664-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11440-018-0664-3

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