Elastic behavior of granular packings: effect of particle shape
Résumé
By means of particle dynamics simulations, we investigate the elastic moduli of dense packings
of spherical and dodecahedral monodisperse particles. The samples are prepared by isotropic
compaction under constant load and zero friction, leading to the densest isotropic state, which is
unique for each particle type. Then, they are subjected to quasi-static triaxial compression using
tri-periodic boundary conditions, thereby removing spurious wall effects, for different values of the
interparticle friction coefficient (from 0.1 to 0.4). From the stress and strain data, we evaluate the
effective elastic moduli (the Young modulus, bulk modulus and Poisson ratio) at several instances
of deformation by applying shear reversal. We find that the elastic moduli are independent of the
friction coefficient at very small shear deformations due to the stability of the contact network at
such dense states, but undergo considerable change at larger deformations when interparticle
contacts begin to slide or are lost along the direction of extension. Notably, beyond this point the
Young modulus declines with further deformation to a value all the more small that the friction co-
efficient is larger. In all cases, the bulk modulus increases with deformation. The shear modulus
is found to be larger for polyhedral particles due to stronger constraints on particle movements.
Our data show that the initial Poisson ratio is 0.12 for spherical particle packings, in agreement
with those of Agnolin and Roux [1], and 0.09 for packings of rigid polyhedral particles. This lower
value of the Poisson ratio reflects the lower mobility of the particles.