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Investigation of the effect of different gravity conditions on penetration mechanisms by the Distinct Element Method

Mingjing Jiang (State Key Laboratory of Disaster Reduction in Civil Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai, China and Key Laboratory of Geotechnical and Underground Engineering of Ministry of Education, Tongji University, Shanghai, China and Department of Geotechnical Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai, China)
Fang Liu (State Key Laboratory of Disaster Reduction in Civil Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai, China and Key Laboratory of Geotechnical and Underground Engineering of Ministry of Education, Tongji University, Shanghai, China and Department of Geotechnical Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai, China)
Huaning Wang (School of Aerospace Engineering and Applied Mechanics, Tongji University, Shanghai, China)
Xinxin Wang (Department of Geotechnical Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai, China)

Engineering Computations

ISSN: 0264-4401

Article publication date: 5 October 2015

389

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to present an investigation of the effect of different gravity conditions on the penetration mechanism using the two-dimensional Distinct Element Method (DEM), which ranges from high gravity used in centrifuge model tests to low gravity incurred by serial parabolic flight, with the aim of efficiently analyzing cone penetration tests on the lunar surface.

Design/methodology/approach

Seven penetration tests were numerically simulated on loose granular ground under different gravity conditions, i.e. one-sixth, one-half, one, five, ten, 15 and 20 terrestrial gravities. The effect of gravity on the mechanisms is examined with aspect to the tip resistance, deformation pattern, displacement paths, stress fields, stress paths, strain and rotation paths, and velocity fields during the penetration process.

Findings

First, under both low and high gravities, the penetration leads to high gradients of the value and direction of stresses in addition to high gradients in the velocity field near the penetrometer. In addition, the soil near the penetrometer undergoes large rotations of the principal stresses. Second, high gravity leads to a larger rotation of principal stresses and more downward particle motions than low gravity. Third, the tip resistance increases with penetration depth and gravity. Both the maximum (steady) normalized cone tip resistance and the maximum normalized mean (deviatoric) stress can be uniquely expressed by a linear equation in terms of the reciprocal of gravity.

Originality/value

This study investigates the effect of different gravity conditions on penetration mechanisms by using DEM.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

The work was funded by China National Funds for Distinguished Young Scientists with grant number 51025932, and China National Natural Science Foundation with grant number 51179128. All these supports are greatly appreciated. In addition, the authors would like to thank Dr Colin Thornton from the University of Birmingham, UK for his valuable comments on this paper.

Citation

Jiang, M., Liu, F., Wang, H. and Wang, X. (2015), "Investigation of the effect of different gravity conditions on penetration mechanisms by the Distinct Element Method", Engineering Computations, Vol. 32 No. 7, pp. 2067-2099. https://doi.org/10.1108/EC-07-2014-0153

Publisher

:

Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2015, Emerald Group Publishing Limited

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