Stress and Strain in Flat Piling of Disks

TL;DR

This paper investigates stress and strain behavior in a pile of disks created via DEM, comparing theoretical elasticity predictions with numerical measurements to understand mechanical properties.

Contribution

It introduces a numerical experiment of disk piling and compares micro-mechanical and continuum elasticity models for stress-strain relations.

Findings

Measured stress and strain increments during pile formation.

Predicted Young's modulus and Poisson's ratio align with numerical results.

Abstract

We have created a flat piling of disks in a numerical experiment using the Distinct Element Method (DEM) by depositing them under gravity. In the resulting pile, we then measured increments in stress and strain that were associated with a small decrease in gravity. We first describe the stress in terms of the strain using isotropic elasticity theory. Then, from a micro-mechanical view point, we calculate the relation between the stress and strain using the mean strain assumption. We compare the predicted values of Young's modulus and Poisson's ratio with those that were measured in the numerical experiment.