The effect of microstructural fabric on dynamic load transfer in two dimensional assemblies of elliptical particles

Experimental and numerical studies have been conducted to investigate the effect of microstructural fabric, such as major axis orientation, contact normal and branch vector distributions, on dynamic load transfer behavior in two dimensional granular material. The granular medium was simulated by assemblies of elliptical particles. The experimental method utilizes the combination of high speed photography and photoelasticity to study the local load transfer behavior in granular assemblies subjected to explosive loading. Numerical studies employed a computational scheme based on the discrete element method. Results indicate that the microstructural fabric has significant effect on the load transfer phenomena, such as stress wave velocity, load pulse wavelength and contact load attenuation. Copyright © 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd