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In oil/gas exploitations of ice-covered cold regions, conical offshore structures are designed to reduce ice force and to avoid the ice-induced intense vibrations of vertical structures. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the interaction between ice cover and conical offshore structures, the discrete element method (DEM) is introduced to determine the dynamic ice loads under different structure parameters and ice conditions.

The ice cover is dispersed into a series of bonded spherical elements with the parallel bonding model. The interaction between ice cover and conical offshore structure is obtained based on the DEM simulation. The influence of ice velocity on ice load is compared well with the experimental data of Hamburg Ship Model Basin. Moreover, the ice load on a conical platform in the Bohai Sea is also simulated. The ice loads on its upward and downward ice-breaking cones are compared.

The DEM can be used well to simulate the ice loads on conical structures. The influences of ice velocity, ice thickness, conical angle on ice loads can be analyzed with DEM simulations.

This DEM can also be applied to simulate ice loads of different offshore structures and aid in determining ice load in offshore structure designs.

The purpose of this paper is to extend the bridge scale method (BSM) developed for granular materials with only the solid phase to that taking into account the effects of wetting process in porous continuum. The granular material is modeled as partially saturated porous Cosserat continuum and discrete particle assembly in the coarse and fine scales, respectively.

Based on the mass and momentum conservation laws for the three phases, i.e. the solid skeleton, the pore water and the pore air, the governing equations for the unsaturated porous Biot-Cosserat continuum model in the coarse scale are derived. In light of the passive air pressure assumption, a reduced finite element model for the model is proposed. According to the decoupling of the fine and coarse scale calculations in the BSM, the unsaturated porous Cosserat continuum model using the finite element method and the discrete element model using the discrete element method for granular media are combined.

The numerical results for a 2D example problem of slope stability subjected to increasing rainfall along with mechanical loading demonstrate the applicability and performance of the present BSM. The microscopic mechanisms of macroscopic shear band developed in the slope are demonstrated.

Do not account for yet the effects of unsaturated pore water in the fine scale.

The novel BSM that couples the Biot-Cosserat porous continuum modeling and the discrete particle assembly modeling in both coarse and fine scales, respectively, is proposed to provide a micro-macro discrete-continuum two-scale modeling approach for numerical simulations of the hydro-mechanical coupling problems in unsaturated granular materials.

Granular materials possess multiscale structures, i.e. micro-scales involving atoms and molecules in a solid particle, meso-scales involving individual particles and their correlated structure, and macroscopic assembly. Strong and abundant dissipations are exhibited due to mesoscopic unsteady motion of individual grains, and evolution of underlying structures (e.g. force chains, vortex, etc.), which defines the key differences between granular materials and ordinary objects. The purpose of this paper is to introduce the major studies have been conducted in recent two decades.

The main properties at individual scale are introduced, including the coordination number, pair-correlation function, force and mean stress distribution functions, and the dynamic correlation function. The relationship between meso- and macro-scales is analyzed, such as between contact force and stress, the elastic modulus, and bulk friction in granular flows. At macroscales, conventional engineering models (i.e. elasto-plastic and hypo-plastic ones) are introduced. In particular, the so-called granular hydrodynamics theory, derived from thermodynamics principles, is explained.

On the basis of recent study the authors conducted, the multiscales (both spatial and temporal) in granular materials are first explained, and a multiscale framework is presented for the mechanics of granular materials.

It would provide a paramount view on the multiscale studies of granular materials.

Cosserat continuum models are motivated by modeling size effects in materials with micro-structure. While elastic Cosserat continuum models can reproduce size effects in deformation stiffness, inelastic models are often used to capture localization and post failure behavior of materials. In application of inelastic Cosserat models, parameter determination is a difficult issue not fully addressed. The purpose of this paper is to discuss parameter-related characteristic lengths in Cosserat continuum modeling of granular materials.

Based on a Cosserat continuum extension of a hypoplastic model for granular media, interpretation of additional parameters are sought through analysis of simple one-dimensional shear. Governing equations are obtained, respectively, for small strain shear formation and for stead flow state in localized zone.

Two characteristic lengths are obtained analytically for granular materials: one governs the size effect near boundaries in shear deformation, the other scales the thickness of shear band in failure. While both characteristic lengths are proportional to the micro-structure length (the mean grain diameter), the former is related to the micro-stiffness parameter, and the latter depends on the micro-strength parameter. The results reveal a connection between size effects, the micro-structure length and the material properties. The work also provides a new perspective to inelastic Cosserat continuum models, as well as a possible way for determination micro-deformation and strength parameters.

The results reveal a connection between size effects, the micro-structure length and the material properties. The work provides a new perspective and an interpretation to the micro-deformation and strength parameters of inelastic Cosserat continuum models, as well as a possible way for determination of these parameters.

Granular material exhibits rich dynamical behaviors under impacting, and its impacting dynamical process is seriously influenced by many factors. The purpose of this paper is to explore the dynamical response of granular bed obliquely impacted by a rotational projectile, and the effect of density ratio and diameter ratio on its penetration depth is mainly considered.

In most experiments, as the angular velocity and the impact velocity always produce a coupling effect on the whole impact process, then it is quite difficult to separately distinguish the influence of angular velocity. Therefore, the discrete element method is used here to achieve this purpose. The authors vary one parameter and keep other parameter unchanged, and then discuss the effect of these parameters on penetration depth statistically.

The numerical model in this paper can effectively predict the dynamical process of granular medium under impacting. The projectile’s penetration depth exhibits a similar scaling with its angular velocity under different density ratios and diameter ratios, and the angular velocity exhibits an obvious criticality.

A DEM code and corresponding statistical approach are used to explore the complex dynamical process of a granular material obliquely impacted by a rotation projectile.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the local feature of driven granular gases in event-driven molecular dynamic simulation, in order to achieve spatial profiles of local velocity distribution and granular temperature, and the local state with various coefficients of restitution.

Event-driven molecular dynamic simulation is performed to study a vibro-fluidized granular gas system. Triangular-wave vibration is adopted in the simulation. The authors focus on the steady state of a driven granular gas.

The simulation finds the local velocity distribution is asymmetric along vibration direction in this driven granular gas system, which agrees with the experimental results obtained in micro-gravity. A nonlinear spatial profile of the skewness of local velocity distribution in vibration direction is found in the simulation. Furthermore, it is found that the value of skewness increases with the system dissipation. It is also found that the two temperature components T+ and T− differ from each other. This shows breakdown of energy equipartition. The ratio between them drops exponentially along y direction in various coefficients of restitution. All results confirm that the bulk boundary effect relates to the dissipation properties of granular gases.

This is the first MD simulation that investigates the bulk boundary effect to the local velocity distribution. The spatial profiles of the skewness of local velocity distribution are also investigated when changing the coefficient of restitution to study the influence of the system dissipative nature.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a new yield function for granular materials based on microstructures.

A biaxial compression test on granular materials under different stress paths is numerically simulated by distinct element method. A microstructure parameter S that considers both the arrangement of granular particles and the inter-particle contact forces is proposed. The evolution of the microstructure parameter S under the simulated stress paths is analyzed, from which a yield function for granular materials is derived. The way of determining the two parameters involved in the yield function is proposed.

The new yield function is calibrated using the test data of one sand and two rockfill materials. The shape of the new yield surface is similar to that of the Cam-clay model.

The paper proposes a microstructure parameter S, which considers both the arrangement of granular particles and the inter-particle contact forces. From the evolution of S, a yield function for granular materials is derived. The proposed yield function has a simple structure and the parameters are easy to be determined, leading to a feasible realization of engineering application.

Continuum-based discrete element method is an explicit numerical method, which is a combination of block discrete element method (DEM) and FEM. When simulating large deformation problems, such as cutting, blasting, water-like material flowing, the distortion of elements will lead to no convergence of the numerical system. To solve the convergence problem, a particle contact-based meshfree method (PCMM) is introduced in. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

PCMM is based on traditional particle DEM, and use particle contacts to generate triangular elements. If three particles are contact with each other, the element will be created. Once elements are created, the macroscopic constitutive law could be introduced in. When large deformation of element occurs, the contact relationship between particles will be changed. Those elements that do not meet the contact condition will be deleted, and new elements that coincide with the relationship will be generated. By the deletion and creation of elements, the convergence problem induced by element distortion will be eliminated. To solve FEM and PCMM coupled problems, a point-edge contact model is introduced in, and normal and tangential springs are adopted to transfer the contact force between particles and blocks.

According to the deletion and recreation of elements based on particle contacts, PCMM could simulate large deformation problems. Some numerical cases (i.e. elastic field testing, uniaxial compression analysis and wave propagation simulation) show the accuracy of PCMM, and others (i.e. soil cutting, contact burst and water-like material flowing) show the rationality of PCMM.

In traditional particle DEM, contact relationships are used to calculate contact forces. But in PCMM, contact relationships are adopted to generate elements. Compared to other meshfree methods, in PCMM, the element automatic deletion and recreation technique is used to solve large deformation problems.

The purpose of this paper is to establish a new two-phase Discrete Element Method (DEM) model to investigate the movement of fresh concrete which consists of mortar and aggregate. The established DEM model was adopted to simulate the mixing process of fresh concrete based on the commercial software package PFC3D. The trajectories of particles and particle clusters were recorded to analyze the mixing behavior from different scales. On one hand, the macro-scale movement was obtained to make the mixing process visualization. On the other hand, the relative micro movement of the single particle and particle clusters was also monitored to further study the mixing mechanism of the fresh concrete.

A new two-phase DEM model was designed to simulate the movement of fresh concrete which consists of mortar and aggregate. The linear-spring dashpot model was used to model all the contacts between particle and particle/wall to characterize the viscidity of fresh concrete. Moreover, two sets of parallel bond models were employed to characterize the contact between the mortar particles and mortar/coarse aggregate particles, namely the pbond1 and pbond2. The hybrid treatment enables the current DEM model to handle the yield behavior.

The mixing process of fresh concrete is mainly composed by the transportation in the x-direction and the overturn and fall off in the y- and z-directions. With these movements in different directions, the concrete particles can be fully mixed in the mixing drum.

A new two-phase DEM model was proposed and used to simulate the mixing process of fresh concrete. The outcomes of the simulation would be helpful for making the transporting truck visualization and the movement behavior of fresh concrete observable. The model can provide dynamic information of particles to reveal the interaction mechanism of fresh concrete in the truck mixer which is extremely difficult to obtain on-line in physical experiments or building site.