INVESTIGATION OF THE QUASI-STATIC BEHAVIOR OF GRANULAR MATERIALS WITH A NEW SIMULATION METHOD

A new simulation method, which will be called the granular element method, has been developed to investigate the quasi-static behavior of granular materials. The granular element method is based on an iterative process which includes the calculation of the contact stiffness matrices and the cancellation of the fixing force vectors to get the equilibrium state. The comparison with the exact solution of a granular assembly of three discs shows the efficiency of this method. Another example is the bi-axial shearing test of 122 discs. Through the detailed investigation of the results, the induced anisotropy and the dissipation mechanism are discussed. It is observed that the dissipation in granular assembly tends to take place locally before the formation of internal structure or after the collapse of the structure.