Microscopic evaluation of strain distribution in granular materials during shear

The evolution of local strains during shear of particles of a granular material is presented in this paper. A cylindrical specimen composed of 6.5-mm spherical plastic particles was loaded under an axisymmetric triaxial loading condition. Computed tomography (CT) was used to acquire three-dimensional images of the specimen at three shearing stages. The high-resolution CT images were used to identify the 3D coordinates of 400 particles. Nine strain components (normal, shear, and rotation), rotation angles, and local dilatancy angles for particle groups were calculated, and their frequency distribution histograms are presented and discussed. It was found that there is no preferred shear direction, and the standard deviation values for shear strain components (epsilon(xy), epsilon(xz), and epsilon(yz)) were almost equal for the specific test shearing stage. Shear strains as high as 25.6% were recorded for some particle groups. Furthermore, granular particle groups rotated in the 3D space with almost equal amounts of rotation strains when loaded under axisymmetric triaxial condition. Rotation strain values are very close to the corresponding shear strains. Compared to particle sliding, rotation plays a major role in the shearing resistance of granular materials. The cumulative vertical rotation angles can be as high as 38 degrees and the horizontal rotation angles have values as high as 60 degrees. The statistical distributions of the local dilatancy angle (psi(1)) of particle groups were calculated and found to be increasing as shearing continues. The "global" dilatancy angle value is very close to the mean local psi(1) during the first stage of shearing (i.e, when global epsilon(z)=-7.3%)