Analysis Of Dynamic States Of Granular Materials Under Cyclic Loading By Discrete Element Modeling

Granular materials are very common in Highway Engineering. These types of materialscan exhibit astonishing and roughly understood phenomena under vibration. Vibration is aprimary mean to compact granular materials especially in Highway Engineering. However, atpresent, studies on vibratory compaction are mainly based on phenomenological methods. Abetter understanding of granular behavior under dynamic loading is required.In this paper, we investigate the dynamic states of granular materials under vibration. Amodel is built using three-dimensional discrete element method. The instantaneous state of agranular assembly consists of inelastic, frictional spheres under cyclic loading is analyzed indetail. The dynamic state is described by depth profiles of relative density, granulartemperature and translational energy ratio. Through investigation on factors includingvibrating amplitude, frequency, depth, friction coefficient, damping ratio and aspect ratio, it isfound that the dynamic state of system is mainly depending on vibration amplitude andfrequency, particle friction and initial state. And a first step understanding of behaviors ofgranular materials under vibration is made based on the analysis.