Study on the meso-structure development in direct shear tests of a granular
material

Han Yang, Wen-Jie Xu, Qi-Cheng Sun, Yuan Feng

PII: S0032-5910(16)30959-7
DOI: doi:10.1016/j.powtec.2016.12.084
Reference: PTEC 12232

To appear in: Powder Technology

Received date: 6 June 2016

Revised date: 24 December 2016
Accepted date: 27 December 2016

Please cite this article as: Han Yang, Wen-Jie Xu, Qi-Cheng Sun, Yuan Feng, Study
on the meso-structure development in direct shear tests of a granular material, Powder
Technology (2016), doi:10.1016/j.powtec.2016.12.084

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Study on the meso-structure development in direct shear

tests of a granular material

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Han Yang, Wen-Jie Xu, Qi-Cheng Sun, Yuan Feng

Han Yang Ph.D Candidate

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1. State Key Laboratory of Hydroscience and Hydraulic EngineeringDepartment of Hydraulic

Engineering, Tsinghua University , Beijing, China 100084

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2. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of California, Davis, CA 95616,

USA
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Wen-Jie XU Associate professor
State Key Laboratory of Hydroscience and Hydraulic EngineeringDepartment of Hydraulic
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Engineering, Tsinghua University , Beijing, China 100084

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Qi-Cheng SUN Associate professor

State Key Laboratory of Hydroscience and Hydraulic EngineeringDepartment of Hydraulic
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Engineering, Tsinghua University , Beijing, China 100084

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Yuan Fen Ph.D Candidate

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Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of California, Davis, CA 95616,

USA

Corresponding Authors address:

Wen-Jie Xu
State Key Laboratory of Hydroscience and Hydraulic EngineeringDepartment of Hydraulic

Engineering, Tsinghua University , Beijing, China 100084

Phone: +86-10 -6278 2301

Cell: +86 13522279843

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E-mail: wenjiexu@tsinghua.edu.cn

ABSTRACT

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Stress induced anisotropy phenomenon has been the main interest of many researches,

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especially in granular materials. Discrete element method (DEM) is one of the

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important methods for the study of meso-mechanics of granular materials. Based on

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previous studies, a 3D meso-fabric statistical method have been established, which can
be used for quantitative analysis of 3D meso-fabric development in DEM numerical

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simulation of granular materials under external loads. Taking the direct shear test of
sand as an example, the stress induced anisotropy of sand in 3D under the shearing
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loads has been studied systematically. According to the analysis results: the magnitude
of anisotropy significantly develops during shear tests and gradually become steady
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after the peak, and the principal directions of anisotropy rotates consistent with the
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principal stress direction; the connectivity between the particles decreases and a series
of particle skeletons are formed in the sample which undertake the main external loads.
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Furthermore, the stress state does also influence the evolution of anisotropy and force
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chain networks.
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Key words: Discrete element method (DEM), Direct shear test, Meso-fabric, Granular
material

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1. INTRODUCTION

A granular material is a conglomeration of discrete solid, macroscopic particles

characterized by a loss of energy whenever the particles interact, which is related

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widely to daily life, industry, materials preparation, and a lot of natural phenomena.

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However, the exact and comprehensive physical understanding of the solid- and

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fluid-like mechanical properties and the in-between transition is considered to be one

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of the most challenging problems in soil mechanics and granular material mechanics.
It is known that the structure determines the properties of an ideal crystalline

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material, while in the granular materials, due to the random particle packing in
long-range as revealed by the radial distribution function, the difficulty for
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characterizing of the structural disordered granular materials leads to problems for
understanding the deformation, failure, energy dissipation, and the structure
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properties relationship of the granular materials. Therefore, granular materials present

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a lot of outstanding questions and challenges.

Unlike the traditional laboratory tests, numerical tests based on discrete element
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method (DEM) [1] could easily provide details of positions, contact forces and various
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parameters of granular materials in meso-scale, and were used to perform in-depth

analysis on the meso-structure transformation of granular materials [2,3]. During the
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deformation of geotechnical materials, the assembly structure always exhibits

anisotropic behaviors. Furthermore, anisotropy behaviors also will happen in sand
piling process [4,5]. Casagrande & Carillo [6] defined soil anisotropy with two
components, inherent anisotropy and stress induced anisotropy. Inherent anisotropy
describes the anisotropic arrangement of soil particles and internal stress during their
original sedimentation [7,8], which is generally treated as initial conditions in DEM
simulations. Oda [9] derived the explicit form of fabric tensors, and discussed the
physical meaning of stress induced anisotropy. The main focus of these research is
stress induced anisotropy, which is defined as the anisotropic rearrangement of soil

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structure during external loading.

Furthermore, the paths transmitting contact force between particles in a granular

material is another important behavior in meso-scale, and extensive studies are

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conducted concerning the morphological characteristics of force chain networks under

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different test conditions and various loading stages [10-15]. Sun et al.[16, 17] focused

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on mechanical properties and conducted quantitative analysis on a few characteristic

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parameters. These studies presented effective methods to characterize strong force
chains, and also proved that for granular materials there are closely relationship

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between the macro mechanical behaviors and the development of the force chain
networks.
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Because of the difficulties in statistical analysis and post-processing visualization,
the number of three dimensional DEM studies is limited. Ochiai & Lade [18]
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discussed three dimensional behaviors of sand under triaxial compression tests, plane
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strain compression tests and cubical triaxial tests with drained Cambria Sand
specimens. Chang & Liu [19] derived the equation on stress and fabric tensors and
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applied them to three dimensional DEM simulations. In different spatial dimension,

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the degree of freedom of grains (including translational and rotational) are different
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which could lead to different particle rearrangements and eventually influence the
deformation and failure mechanism of a granular assembly.

In this work, both laboratory direct shear tests of sands and corresponding 3D
DEM simulations have been performed, in order to explore the deformation and
failure mechanisms. Direct shear test (DST) is widely used in practical geotechnical
engineering to measure the effective shear strength for sands because of its
effectiveness and simplicity. To study the development of mesoscopic structure, this
paper focuses on the evolution of stress induced anisotropy and the reformation of
force chain networks.

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In section 2, based on the spherical harmonic series three dimensional fitting

formulae for anisotropic statistical analysis are established. In section 3, based on the
laboratory test of the sand the 3D DEM DSTs have been performed. According to the

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results of section 2 and 3, in section 4 the development of anisotropic parameters is

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quantitatively studied. And associated with the change of macroscopic parameters, the
relation of meso-fabric and macro-mechanical behaviors of sands is presented.

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2 MESO-FABRIC ANALYSIS

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Stress induced anisotropy describes the anisotropic rearrangement of particle
positions , as well as their principal directions, inside granular materials under external
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loading. For the advantages in obtaining the meso-mechanical behaviors, in recent
years DEM has been widely used in studying the granular material mechanics and the
development of the meso-fabric. And some quantitative analysis methods have been
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provided to describe the meso-fabric of granular material based on DEM. For example,
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a set of equations derived from Fourier expansion by Bathurst & Rothenburg [20] has
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been presented for two dimensional granular systems. According to the analysis by
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Thornton [21], three dimensional anisotropy has the similar statistical characteristics
with that of 2D.
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Spherical particle is the most common geometric shape used in DEM simulation
of granular materials. For simplification, Fig.1 shows the global and local coordinate
systems in 3D respectively. The global coordinate system is spherical in which the
space is divided into a number of radial cones as statistical intervals, as shown in Fig.
1(a). The local coordinate system constructed for each contact is cylindrical, as shown
in Fig. 1(b). In the spherical coordinate system, the distribution of normal contact
forces with respect to group orientations are represented by the length and color of
radial cones, as shown in Fig. 2(a). The vertical section of 3D results is in peanut
shape, similar to the 2D anisotropic statistical results. Chang & Misra [22] proposed a

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theoretical stress-strain relationship showing the influence of packing arrangement on

the mechanical behavior of a granular material. However, there are few studies based
on the meso-fabric analysis in 3D [8], this section will give an in-depth description on

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the meso-fabric analysis methods of the granular material using spherical harmonics in

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3D.

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Figure 2 shows the similarity in morphological features with those of spherical

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harmonics, which then could be applied to the fitting of three dimensional anisotropic
statistical results. The spherical harmonic series is the angular portion of the Laplace

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equations solution in spherical coordinates, which is widely used in 3D shape
modeling and reconstruction [23,24]. Laplace equation in spherical coordinate takes
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the form as:

2 f 1 f 1 2 f
r sin 2 0 (1)
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r r sin sin 2
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The angular part of its normalized solution can be expressed as:

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2n 1 (n m)! m
Ynm , ( 1)m Pn (cos )eim
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(2)
4 (n m)!
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where is the polar angle and is the azimuthal angle, and their definitions are

indicated in Fig. 1(a); Pnm (cos ) is termed as the associated Legendre function. Eq. (2)

is the general form of spherical harmonics.

And Luerkens [25] gave the general digital modeling expression of irregular
geometric bodies in the spherical coordinate system:

n
R f , (nm cos m nm sin m )Pnm (cos ) (3)
n 0 m 0

where, R f ( , ) is the radial distance from the centroid to surface points; 0

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and 0 2 are defined in Eq. (2); nm and nm are Fourier-Legendre

coefficients related to the surface features of the body, which are given by:

(2n 1)(n m) 1 2
R( , ) Pnm (cos )cos(m )d d cos

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m , n
2n m)! 1 0

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(4)
(2n 1)(n m)
1 2

m ,n
2n m)! 1 0
R( , ) Pnm (cos )sin(m )d d cos

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In which the integrations are implemented in Gaussian quadrature rule [26].

For three dimensional direct shear simulations, Eq. (4) can be expanded and
truncated to:
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1 1
R f , 00 20 (3cos2 1) 22 cos2 3sin 2 40 (35cos4 30cos2 3) (5)
2 8

Note that only the terms with even-numbered subscripts are kept due to the axial
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symmetry of the statistical plots. Besides, since a second-order equation is not

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accurate enough in the digital fitting, the fourth-order term is reserved.

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For each time step, the DEM simulation results are statistically analyzed and the
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distributions of contact direction, normal and tangential components of contact force

are obtained. The coordinates of every space point is transformed by rotating the local
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coordinate system to a designated principal direction. Then the Fourier-Legendre

coefficients are calculated by Eq. (4) so that a set of radial distance of fitted surface
points is obtained using Eq. (5). Trial-and-error method is applied to determine the
most fitted principal direction of anisotropy, while the errors between practical values
and fitted values are calculated.

3. Direct shear tests

3.1 Laboratory DSTs of sand

Sand from Fujian (Chinese standard method, GB/T17671-1999) is used in direct

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shear tests of this study (Fig. 3). Samples are sieved to make sure particle sizes are
between 1.0 ~ 2.0 mm. The diameter of the shear box is 63.84mm, and the height is
20mm. The density of the compacted sample is 1584 kg/m3.

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The procedures of the direct shear test include three steps. First, pour and

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compact the sieved sand into the shear box until the sand thickness reaches one third

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of the expected value, which is 6.67mm in this study. Repeat this three times so that

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the height of the specimen reaches 20mm. Then, apply vertical load on upper shear
box through loading frame step by step, and wait until the system stabilized. Finally,

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apply horizontal shear by moving the lower box with a constant velocity 0.2mm/min
until the shear displacement reaches 3.5mm (shear strain is about 5%), while record
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horizontal shear forces and vertical displacements.

Four tests under different vertical (normal) stress, 100kPa, 200kPa, 300kPa,
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400kPa were conducted. The inset of Fig. 4 shows the relationship between the shear
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stress and shear displacements, and reveals the behavior of loose sand samples.
Shortly after the onset of shear movement, stress-displacement curves rise rapidly.
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With the decrease of tangent shear modulus, peak shear strengths are reached. The
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decrease of shear strength after the peak is not apparent. The particle shapes are rather
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uneven, as shown in Fig. 3, which could further reduce the porosity of the sample.
According to the plot of failure envelopes in Fig. 4, the friction angle of the sand
sample is 37.5. This is a rather large value for sandy soil, due to rather large grain
size and coarse morphology.

After the shear test, quartz particles with diameter under 1mm are sieved out and
weighted. The rate of crushed grains weight over weight of the entire sample is used to
denote the effect of particle crushing. Fig. 4 also shows the percentage of crushed
grains and vertical loads. Surprisingly, there is a linear correspondence between
crushed particle mass and vertical load. Although this observation matches common
sense that high pressure crushes more grains, the rationality and universality of this
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phenomenon need further study to be confirmed. Furthermore, the crushed percentage

is quite small (around 1.5%). Therefore, it is safe to ignore the influence of particle
crushing in DEM numerical simulations.

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3.2 3D DEM SIMULATION OF DST

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3.2.1 DEM and contact model

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The 3D DEM simulations of direct shear test were performed with an open

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source 3D DEM code - YADE, which was developed at Grenoble University [27].

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Considering the computation cost and acceptable performance, spherical particles are
used in this paper. According to the laboratory tests, the broken particles of the sample
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are very little (Fig.4), so the particle breakage is not considered in DEM test. As we
know, the particle shape does have an influence on the mechanical behavior of
granular material. For the non-spherical real particles, they are in contact with their
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neighbors through two or more points (or a contact face), and not a single point like
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spherical particles. In this case, rolling resistance will play a major role on the
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mechanical behavior of granular material [28]. To overcome these disadvantages when

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using spherical particles in DEM, a moment transfer law was introduced into a 3D
contact model of YADE, which is composed of normal, tangential and rolling contact
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components (Fig.5).

Inter-particle contact law used in this study is the modified Hertz-Mindlin contact
model, and a soft-contact approach allowing the particles to be moderately overlapped.
This model treats interactions of normal direction and tangential direction with
different constitutive theories, thus has independent formulas to calculate them
respectively. And represented by contact normal secant stiffness K N , the normal

component of stiffness is nonlinear elastic [30]:

2G 2r
KN dN (6)
3(1 )
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where, G and v are the shear modulus and Poissons ratio of two contacting particles
respectively, dN is the particle overlap, and r is the average radius. For interaction
between particle A and particle B, the average radius is defined in Eq. (7), while

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particle-to-wall contacts are dealt similarly.

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2rArB
r (7)
rA rB

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The tangential component of stiffness is based on the model presented by Bowden
& Tabor (1964), excluding the non-linear terms caused by tangential contact forces.
Tangential contact stiffness KT is given:
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2(3rG 2 (1 ))1/3 1/3
KT fN (8)
2
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where fN is the normal contact force, and other parameters are the same as in Eq. (6).
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Additionally, the Mohr-Coulomb criterion is employed to determine the maximum

tangential contact force which can be withstood by the inter-particle interaction.
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Furthermore, this contact model is capable of simulating the degradation of impact

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energy by introducing the effect of linear viscous damping into the system. Specific
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equations and operations are presented in detail in YADE documentation [30].

3.2 Initial sample preparation

The samples in DEM simulations are prepared by using a comprehensive method

consists of gravity deposit and geometric rule-out. Detailed steps can be summarized
as the following: (a) Generate a fixed sample box; (b) Generate a loose packing of
particles in the space with five times height of the prospective sample height; (c)
Apply the gravity so that the particles fall into the sample box; (d) Remove the gravity,
and add physical damping and wait until the system stabilizes, which is denoted by the
unbalanced force reaching a prescribed threshold value; (e) Check the center of all

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particles and rule out those beyond the top plate, and export the geometrics of the
particles so that they could be used in following simulations.

3.3 Implementation of direct shear tests in DEM

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The numerical model for three dimensional direct shear tests includes two shear

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boxes, each has a horizontal flange plate to keep the particles inside the shear boxes

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during shear, as shown in Fig. 6(a). The top and bottom plates use material with high

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contact friction so that the rotation of particles near boundaries is highly limited. This
operation intends to simulate the same phenomena happen in laboratory tests, where

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contact friction between quartz particles and permeable stones (located at the top and
bottom of the sample) is much larger than inter-particle friction. The dimensions of the
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numerical model are consistent with laboratory tests, i.e. 63.84mm in both length and
width, 20mm in height. Spherical particles are applied to simulate sand grains with a
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random size distribution between 1mm and 2mm. The total particle number is 21433.
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Table 1 is the parameters of sands used in the contact law in DEM simulations.
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The whole simulation process includes three steps: (a) Import sample model and
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let the system reach equilibrium, namely, when the unbalanced force decreases within
the tolerance (110-5 Newton in this research); (b) Consolidate the sample by slowly
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moving the top plate vertically while other plates are fixed; (c) When the expected
vertical pressure is achieved and the system reaches equilibrium again, shear force is
applied by translating the upper box horizontally with a constant velocity of
0.2mm/min. During the whole simulation process, top plate is controlled by a servo
mechanism to maintain a constant normal pressure. The physical quantities, such as
shear stress, horizontal displacements and vertical displacements, are measured and
recorded at the corresponding boundaries.

Figure 6(b) shows the middle section of the sample along the shearing direction
at the end of the test. According to Fig.6(b), the movement of the inner particles shows

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obvious heterogeneous behavior from the shearing face to the both sides of the top and
bottom of the sample. And the deformation heterogeneity (or deformation localization)
is concentrated in a narrow range along the sliding surface (dashed window in Fig.6b).

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Furthermore, along the shearing direction, the deformation heterogeneity is different

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from the sides to the center of the sample, which indicates that the shear banding of
DST starts at the zones of the external forces. This can be consistent with the

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qualitative observation in the analysis of force chain networks in later sections, where

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the structure of force chains is more shattered in the regions near the boundaries than

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in the middle of the sample.

4. Results Analyses
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4.1 The macro stress-displacement behaviors

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In DEM simulation, four confining normal pressure on both top and bottom are
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considered, i.e 100kPa, 200kPa, 300kPa and 400kPa. Figure 7 shows the shear
displacement and shear stress curves obtained from 3D DEM numerical tests
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represented with symbols. The calculated results for the four confining pressures are
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compared with the measured results with the same confining pressures in our
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laboratory DST tests. It can be found that both coincide very well. The effect of
normal pressure on the macroscopic mechanical behavior of the samples is significant.
Peak stress ratio is a dimensionless parameter that could represent the strength feature
of soil samples. Table 2 is the peak stress ratio of samples under different normal
stresses. From the results of Fig. 7 and Table 2, we can see that the peak stress ratio of
higher normal stress sample is greater, and it occurs at a smaller shear displacement.

4.2 Stress induced anisotropy

Deformation localization is remarkable in direct shear tests, which means that

shear deformation and volume change are restricted to a narrow region around the

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mid-height of the specimen. Therefore, statistical analysis of anisotropy is performed

in the region of which is located at the mid-height and one third of the total height of
the specimen, as shown in Fig. 6(b). This range is roughly regarded as the shear band

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during DST.

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Figure 8 shows the anisotropy evolution of the sample under 300kPa normal

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stress, including the statistical and fitted results of contact direction, normal contact

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forces and tangential contact forces. From Fig.8, it can be seen that the inner fabric of
the granular material is greatly influenced by the loading process. At the initial state,

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the principal direction of anisotropy is vertical, which is caused by the consolidation
pressure in vertical direction. When shearing begins, for the adjustment of the inner
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fabric in meso-scale under external loads, the anisotropy became more and more
obvious and the major principal axis of anisotropy gradually rotate anticlockwise from
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the vertical direction towards the opposite direction of relative shear box movement.
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While, after reaching the peak shear stress state, the inner fabric of the sample tends to
stabilize , as well as the evolution of stress-induced anisotropy.
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Figure 9 shows the evolution of anisotropy parameters. The diagrams of 100kPa

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and 300kPa are presented in contrast to show the influence of normal stress on the
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anisotropic fabric evolution. The evolution of anisotropy curves can be dramatic

sometime accompanied by noticeable fluctuations, especially for samples under high
normal stresses. As presented in Eq. (5), there are four anisotropy parameters
including 00 , 20 , 22 , and 40 . In addition, 22 is also calculated and presented to

confirm that the anisotropy within the horizontal plane is negligible, since all -term
coefficients remain minimal during shear tests. From Fig. 9(a), it can be observed that
00a has a significant value, and the values of 22a and 40a are relatively small. Thus

20a can be considered as the characteristic parameter for contact normal anisotropy.

Here the superscripts denote the anisotropy parameters belong to contact normals, also

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similarly for the superscripts in subsequent discussions of contact forces. For the
anisotropy parameters of normal contact forces shown in Fig. 9(b), though the steady
value of 22n is not that small, a similar relationship of the parameters is observed,

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where 20n and 40n dominate the evolution of anisotropy. Analogous trend of

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tangential contact force anisotropy can be observed in Fig. 9(c), where 40t is the

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dominating factor in the initial stage and 20t takes control of the evolution. Besides,

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the fluctuation of anisotropy parameters matches the stress-displacement relationship

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in Fig.9.

The influence of vertical pressure is also analyzed from the contrast of 100kPa and
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300kPa presented in Fig. 9. The development velocity is faster for samples under
lower normal stress, while the fluctuation is more intense for specimens with higher
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normal stress. Also, the two sets of data share a similar evolution pattern in general.
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As shown in Fig.10, strong instability is also observed in the evolution of polar

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angles of the anisotropic principal directions during shear tests. The development of
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tangential contact force (t) is slightly slower than the other two curves (contact
direction a and normal contact force n), which indicates that frictional rolling motion
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of particles massively occurs with the formation of the shear band. More importantly,
a match between the major principal stress orientation and the principal direction of
anisotropy is observed among the entire shear tests.

4.3 Evolution of force chain networks

Figure 11 shows the development of force chain networks which indicates fabric
evolution of granular assembly at the initial stage, the peak-stress stage and the
post-peak stage during shear tests.

During the initial stage, the force chains are mainly aligned with the vertical
direction. And the vertical load is translated to the particles which are in contact with
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the upper loading box through the contact points, then quickly spread downward,
forming several main force chain. As the simulations reach peak stage, most of the
normal contact force orientations rotate anticlockwise to align with the direction of the

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major principal stress. After the shear stress reaches peak strength, a set of penetrating

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force chains are observed whose orientations coincide withthe principal direction of
anisotropy. Besides, the number of particle-interactions bearing large forces increases

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significantly, indicating the reformation of particle skeleton. It is interesting to notice

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that there are two corner areas where the normal stresses are very small. This is caused

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by the deformation of samples, which the main external load is taken by the rising side
near the boundary of the horizontal push.
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Figure 12 shows normal contact forces with different magnitudes which are
observed from the horizontal and vertical views, respectively. The overall features of
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force chain networks are illustrated in both Fig. 10 and Fig. 12. Many small normal
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forces are observed, but they have little contribution to the macroscopic strength of
sand samples. The failure mechanism is the main interest, so the force chain networks
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of post-peak stage are illustrated here.

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Figure 12(a) shows the distribution of normal contact forces smaller than average,
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the uniformity and isotropy are observed from the picture, which indicates that small
contact forces have little effect on bearing capacity. Figure 12(b) shows the forces
above average, the horizontal views become anisotropic, while the vertical views are
still chaotic. As the threshold reaches five times of average, as presented in Fig. 12(c),
the principal orientations of force chains in both views can be clearly observed. The
polar angles and azimuthal angles are consistent with the principal anisotropy
directions. However, when observing the forces whose magnitudes are larger than ten
times of average, there is no remarkable pattern, and the distribution is too
discontinuous to be analyzed.

Quantitative analysis of the force chain networks can give intuitive information
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regarding the meso-mechanism of shear failure. Connectivity (or, the average

coordination number) and average normal contact forces of all the particles composing
the sample are chosen to be the parameters that represent geometrical and physical

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features, their progress curves are shown in Fig. 13. It is clear that connectivity

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reduces during shear, while mean normal contact force increases. The rate of evolution
slows down as the simulations reach critical state but not fully stabilized. This is

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because the horizontal cross-section area of the shear band decreases as the movement

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of shear boxes so that fewer particles are bearing loads. Besides, samples with higher

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normal stresses will have higher values of connectivity and average contact force.

Figure 14 shows the statistical results of stress magnitudes by classifying the

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particles according to their diameters. It is obvious that bigger particles take higher
stresses, and also have more inter-particle counteractions. This influence of particle
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sizes is more significant as shear progresses, indicating that shear strength is mainly
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contributed by large particles. The skeleton of sand samples is reformed by particles of

relatively big size during shear tests, while grains with diameters smaller than a certain
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threshold relocated inside the hollowed area bearing little stress. However, although
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they share less external loads, it is important to realize that the particles of smaller
sizes have an effect on reducing porosity and increasing stability.
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5. CONCLUSIONS

Meso-structure development of granular material under external loads is one of the

important problems of granular mechanics. In this study, the 3D meso-fabric analysis
method has been improved, where the 3D anisotropic fitting equations are expressed
with spherical harmonics. Then the method was used to analyze the meso-structure
development of sand under direct shear test.

Based on the laboratory tests of sand, the corresponding 3D DEM direct shear tests
have been performed. And the macroscopic analysis of the numerical simulation
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results indicated that the sand was loose due to the post-peak strain-softening
phenomenon.

Anisotropic analysis of the DEM results has shown that the magnitude of

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anisotropy significantly developed during shear tests and gradually became steady

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after the peak. The principal directions of anisotropy rotated anticlockwise which was

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consistent with the principal stress direction.

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The force chain networks of samples in various stages have been visualized, and
their evolution has been described. In the direct shear simulations, a group of

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penetrating force chains was recognized and their directions were consistent with the
principal anisotropic orientation. The connectivity decreased while the average
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normal contact force increased during shear tests, indicating the reformation of
particle skeleton inside sand samples. Finally, the vertical load (normal stress) also
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influenced the evolution of anisotropy and force chain networks, mainly through the
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magnitude of relative parameters.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
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This work has been supported by the Natural Science Foundation of China
(51479095, 51679123, 51323014), and Key Laboratory of Mountain Hazards and
Earth Surface Process, Institute of Mountain Hazards and Environment, Chinese
Academy of Sciences.

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REFERENCES

[1] Cundall, P. A., & Strack, O. D. (1979). A discrete numerical model for granular
assemblies. Geotechnique, 29(1), 47-65.

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[2] Wang, J., Dove, J. E., & Gutierrez, M. S. (2007). Discrete-continuum analysis of
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relationships in idealized granular materials. Mechanics of Materials, 9(1), 65-80.

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Documentation (V. milauer, ed.), The Yade Project, 1st ed.

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Figures List:
Fig.1 Coordinate systems in three dimensional anisotropic analysis: (a) global
coordinate system; (b) local coordinate system.

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Fig. 2 An example of normal contact forces showing the effect of stress induced

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anisotropy and the fitted result

Fig. 3 A photo of quartz sand particles used in direct shear tests

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Fig. 4 The failure envelope and crushed particle percentages in laboratory direct shear
tests. The inset is the stress-displacement curves of sand samples obtained from.

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Fig.5 Contact model in YADE with moment transfer law (Modified after reference
[29])
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Fig. 6 The DEM model and numerical results of 3D direct shear simulation: (a) The
direct shear test model; (b) Shear deformation of the mid-section of sample at the end
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of the test (the dashed window denotes anisotropy analysis regions).

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Fig. 7 Comparison of the shear stress against shear displacement curves between the
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3D DEM and laboratory results (lines are 3D DEM tests, hollow dots are laboratory
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tests).
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Fig. 8 Anisotropy evolution during shear tests (Normal stress 300kPa): (a) contact
direction; (b) normal contact forces; (c) tangential contact forces.

Fig. 9 The evolution of anisotropy parameters of sample under vertical stress is

100kPa (left column) and 300kPa (right column) during shear tests: (a) contact
directions; (b) normal contact forces; (c) tangential contact forces.

Fig.10 Polar angle evolution of anisotropy principal directions during shear tests
(vertical stress is 300kPa)

Fig.11 Evolution of the force chain networks during shear tests under vertical stress
300kPa. (the color, and the width of the chains indicate the size of the normal contact

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forces.)

Fig.12 Force chains in the post-peak stage, grouped according to the magnitudes
(vertical stress 300kPa). The views from horizontal and vertical sides are both shown.

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(a) f n f n ; (b) f n f n ; (c) f n 5 f n ; (d) f n 10 f n .

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Fig.13 Evolution of connectivity and average normal contact forces during shear tests

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(vertical stress 100kPa and 300kPa).

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Fig.14 Relationship between connectivity and average normal contact forces against

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particle sizes at different stages during shear tests (vertical stress 100kPa and 300kPa).
(a) Relationship between connectivity and particle size; (b) Relationship between
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average normal contact forces and particle size
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Figure 1

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Figure 2

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Figure 3

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Figure 5

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Figure 6

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Figure 7

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Figure 8

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Figure 9

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Figure 10

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Figure 11

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Figure 12

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Figure 13

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Figure 14

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Tables:

Table 1 DEM simulation parameters

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Table 2 Peak stress ratios of samples under different normal stresses

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Table 1

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Table 1 DEM simulation parameters

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Contact
Friction Poissons Density Cohesive Rolling Rolling

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Youngs
angle ratio (kg/m3) force stiffness strength
modulus
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45 2.60 GPa 0.01 2650 0 100 0.1
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Table 2

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Table 2 Peak stress ratios of samples under different normal stresses

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Normal stress 100kPa 200kPa 300kPa 400kPa

Peak stress ratio 0.846

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Graphical abstract
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Highlights

1. An approach for analysis of meso-fabric of granular material in 3D was established.

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2. The quantitative analysis of meso-fabric consists of anisotropy and force chain networks.

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3. Evolution of the force chain networks within granular samples are qualitatively analyzed.

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4. The anisotropy of granular material develops significantly during shearing process and gradually

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become steady after the peak..

5. The analysis results provides evidences and insights into the meso-mechanics of sand.

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