Rheology of soft granular materials: uniaxial compression

Abstract

Soft granular materials are assemblies of highly deformable grains interacting via surface forces. The large grain deformations of these materials differ them from hard granular systems, in which, their behaviors are essentially governed by grain rearrangements. In this paper, we study the uniaxial compression of soft granular materials using a numerical approach based on the Material Point Method allowing for large grain deformations, coupled with the Contact Dynamics method for the treatment of unilateral frictional contacts between grains. Considering the neo-Hookean and elasto-plastic grains, the compaction of 2D soft granular packings is analyzed. We focus essentially on the evolution of the packing vertical stress as a function of the packing fraction and the predictive models are proposed.