Effects of particle size-shape correlations on shear strength of granular materials: The case of particle elongation

TL;DR

This study investigates how correlations between particle size and shape, specifically elongation, influence the shear strength of granular materials through numerical simulations and microstructural analysis.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed analysis of size-shape correlations' effects on shear strength, highlighting the importance of considering particle shape in scaling methods.

Findings

Size-shape correlations significantly affect shear strength.

Microstructural factors like connectivity and anisotropy are key.

Ignoring shape in scaling can lead to inaccurate strength estimates.

Abstract

Granular materials often present correlations between particle size and shape due to their geological formation and mechanisms of weathering and fragmentation. It is known that particle shape strongly affects shear strength. However, the effects of shape can be modified by the role the particle plays in a sample given its size. We explore the steady shear strength of samples composed of particles presenting size-shape correlations and we focus on the case of particle elongation in two opposite scenarios: (A) large elongated grains with finer circular grains and (B) large circular grains with elongated finer grains. By means of numerical simulations, we probe the shear strength of samples of varying particle size span from mono to highly polydisperse and particle aspect ratios varying between 1 and 5. We find that the two correlations tested strongly impact the shear strength as particle size span evolves. Microstructural analyses allow us to identify how each correlation affects connectivity and anisotropies linked to the orientation of the particles and load transmission. Decompositions of the stress tensor let us identify the sources of the different mechanical behavior in each correlation and determine the contributions of each particle shape to macroscopic shear strength. This study proves that common small-scaling methods based on truncated or parallel particle size distributions can incur in under/over-estimations of shear strength if particle shapes are not considered in the scaling process.