Why the OCR may reduce the small strain shear stiffness of granular materials?

The small strain shear stiffness G 0 of the soil is of interest and importance in both theory and practice. It is expected that for granular materials G 0 would slightly increases with over-consolidation ratio (OCR). However, laboratory tests indicate that G 0 may decrease with increasing OCR, espec...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inActa geotechnica Vol. 13; no. 6; pp. 1467 - 1472
Main Authors Gu, Xiaoqiang, Yang, Shuocheng
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Berlin/Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 01.12.2018
Springer Nature B.V
Subjects
Complex Fluids and Microfluidics
Contact force
Coordination numbers
Discrete element method
Engineering
Force distribution
Foundations
Geoengineering
Geotechnical Engineering & Applied Earth Sciences
Granular materials
Hydraulics
Laboratories
Laboratory tests
Shear
Shear stiffness
Short Communication
Soft and Granular Matter
Soil
Soil Science & Conservation
Solid Mechanics
Stress concentration
Unloading
Micromechanics
Poisson’s ratio
Discrete element method
Small strain stiffness
OCR
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Summary:The small strain shear stiffness G 0 of the soil is of interest and importance in both theory and practice. It is expected that for granular materials G 0 would slightly increases with over-consolidation ratio (OCR). However, laboratory tests indicate that G 0 may decrease with increasing OCR, especially for loose specimens, which is counterintuitive. To explore the underlying mechanism, discrete element method (DEM) is used to investigate the effect of OCR on G 0 . The DEM simulations successfully capture the laboratory observations. The analyses at the particulate level reveal that the decrease in small strain stiffness is mainly due to the decreases in coordination number and the uniformity of contact force distribution during unloading process.
ISSN:1861-1125
1861-1133
DOI:10.1007/s11440-018-0695-9