Behaviour of granular matter under gravity-induced stress gradient: A two-dimensional numerical investigation

Abstract

Gravity is the most important load source in mining and geotechnical engineering, which causes both the stress level and stress gradient inside geomaterials. Different from the stress level, the influence of gravity-induced stress gradient on the behaviour of the material is still unknown. An in-deep study on it will help to promote the understanding of material behaviour, especially for those cases related to unconventional gravity such as terrestrial ng physical modelling and extraterrestrial resource exploitation (g is the terrestrial gravitational acceleration). In this study, a high-order homogenization for granular materials is proposed at first, in which the stress gradient is drawn into the constitutive representation by adopting a representative volume element (RVE). The consolidation and shear strength behaviour of RVE are then investigated by performing numerical biaxial tests. The results show that all the compressibility, shear strength, shear stiffness, volumetric deformation, and critical state behaviour show a stress gradient dependence. A coupling between stress gradient, stress level, and material properties is also observed. These observations suggest that, besides the stress level, extra attention needs to be paid to material responses related to stress gradient during engineering practices.

Keywords

• Stress gradient
• Representative volume element
• Granular matter
• Gravitational field
• Discrete element method