Particle breakage in granular materials – a conceptual framework

A simple, yet complete framework is introduced with the aim of modelling grains breakage in soils and crushable granular materials. The evolution of grain breakage is measured using a specific parameter of the grain size distribution. The evolution of this new breakage parameter is related to the applied mechanical work, which allows the predictions to be independent of the stress paths. The correlation function proposed is tri-linear, and is capable of describing the initiation, the development and the stabilisation of breakage. The initial state, coupled with three additional parameters are used to calibrate this function. The three parameters are related to a grain specific quantity representing the strength of the particles that form the granular medium. The theory of fractal fragmentation is adopted, and the final state is considered to be unique, and described by a single parameter: the fractal dimension. When tested against experimental results, this model was able to correctly predict the crushable behavior of a sand.The accepted manuscript in pdf format is listed with the files at the bottom of this page. The presentation of the authors' names and (or) special characters in the title of the manuscript may differ slightly between what is listed on this page and what is listed in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript; that in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript is what was submitted by the author