Solid-fluid Transition in Granular Flows: MPM Simulations with a New Constitutive Approach. (2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Redaelli, Irene; Ceccato, Francesca; di Prisco, Claudio; Simonini, Paolo
• Is Part Of: Procedia engineering. Volume 175(2017)
• Page Start: 80
• Page End: 85
• Publication Date: 2017
• Subjects: dry granular flows -- solid-fluid transition -- constitutive model -- granular temperature -- MPM; Engineering -- Congresses; Engineering -- Periodicals; Engineering; Conference proceedings; Periodicals; 620.005
• DOI: 10.1016/j.proeng.2017.01.028
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1877-7058

Abstract

Abstract: Many natural phenomena (rock or snow avalanches, and debris flows) as well as industrial processes are characterized by the flow of solid particles. A key issue in the development of a numerical tool for the study of this problem is the implementation of a suitable constitutive model, capable of capturing the complex rheological behaviour of the granular material in a wide range of strain rates. At the micro-scale level, the grains interacts by enduring frictional contacts or by nearly instantaneous collisions. The first mechanism prevails at low shear rates, when the material behaves like a solid (quasi-static conditions); the latter prevails at high shear rates, when it behaves like a fluid or a granular gas (collisional conditions). This paper presents a new constitutive model able to describe the behaviour of granular materials from quasi-static to collisional conditions and the transition in between. The stress tensor is assumed to be the sum of a quasi-static and a collisional contribution: the former one is modelled by adopting an elasto-plastic model incorporating the critical state concept, whereas the latter stems from the kinetic theory of granular gases. The features of the constitutive model are illustrated with a volume element test; moreover the model has been implemented in the MPM code Anura3D and applied to the simulation of triaxial tests.