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Published on: May 20, 2018
Self-stresses and crack formation by particle swelling in cohesive granular media
M S El Youssoufi1, J-Y Delenne, F Radjai
1LMGC, CNRS-Université Montpellier II, Place Eugène Bataillon, 34095 Montpellier Cedex, France.
Abstract:
We present a molecular-dynamics study of force patterns, tensile strength, and crack formation in a cohesive granular model where the particles are subjected to swelling or shrinkage gradients. Nonuniform particle size change generates self-equilibrated forces that lead to crack initiation as soon as the strongest tensile contacts begin to fail. We find that the tensile strength is well below the theoretical strength as a result of inhomogeneous force transmission in granular media. The cracks propagate either inward from the edge upon shrinkage or outward from the center upon swelling. We show that the coarse-grained stresses are correctly predicted by an elastic model that incorporates particle size change as metric evolution.
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