Effect of heterogeneity on mechanical and micro-seismic behaviors of sandstone subjected to multi-level cyclic loading: A discrete element method investigation

In numerical simulation of the mechanical responses and acoustic emission(AE)characteristics of rocks under cyclic loading,the impacts of compositional heterogeneities of mineral grains have barely been considered.This will lead to a poor reproduction of rock’s behaviors in terms of stress-strain relationship and micro-seismic characteristics in numerical simulation.This work aims to analyze and reveal the impact of parameter heterogeneity on the rock’s fatigue and micro-seismic properties based on PFC3D.Two distribution patterns(uniform and Weibull distributions),are implemented to assign four critical parameters(i.e.tensile strength,cohesion,parallel bond stiffness and linear stiffness)for 32 sets of numerical schemes.The results show that the models with high heterogeneity of tensile strength and cohesion can better reproduce the stress-strain relationship as well as the patterns of cumulative AE counts and energy magnitude.The evolution of the proportion of three-level AE events in the laboratory test is consistent with the numerical results when the highly heterogeneous tensile strength and cohesion are distributed.The numerical results can provide practical guidance to the PFC-based modeling of rock heterogeneity when exposed to multi-level cyclic loading and AE monitoring.

Discrete Element with Flexible Connector for Dynamic Analysis of 3-D Beam Structures

Combined multi-body dynamics with structural dynamics, a new discrete element with flexible connector, which is applicable for 3-D beam structures, is developed in this paper. Both the generalized elastic coefficient matrix of the flexible connector and the mass matrix of discrete element may be off-diagonal in a general case. The zero-length rigid element is introduced to simulate the node at which multiple elements are jointed together. It may also be effective when the axes of adjacent elements are not in the same line. The examples for eigenvalue calculation show that the model is successful. It can be extended to the geometric nonlinear response analysis.

3-DEM转运点技术在散货卸船系统中的应用

通过对不同物料的密度、粒度以及含水量等的分析,建立三维模型,采用3-DEM分散物料汇集技术以及离散元方法对散货卸船系统进行了研究,并对整个过程实施EDEM运行状态仿真,有效地解决了传统带式输送系统中存在的堵料、洒料、扬尘、跑偏等问题。

Establishment of a three-dimensional particle library for graded crushed stone based on a new aggregate morphology characterization method

The morphology of graded crushed stone(GCS)particles has an essential influence on the performance of aggregate mixtures.The impact of particle shape is a comprehensive effect that cannot be considered separately,leading to difficulties in establishing the relationship between the mixture properties and the aggregate morphology by using laboratory methods.The discrete element method(DEM)is an effective way widely adopted to reconstruct the morphology of particles and simulate performance tests of granular materials.However,selecting limited particles characterizing a real particle-assembly for simulation is still a challenge in current research due to the inherent rich variability of particle shapes.In this study,based on the acquisition of three-dimensional(3D)aggregate shapes by using laser scanning,ellipsoid index(EDI)translating the particle shape as a function of surface area,volume,and contour length is proposed to comprehensively evaluate aggregate morphology.Further,a particle library capable of characterizing aggregate morphology distribution is established based on the statistics of the corresponding morphological characteristics of particle samples.The model reliability is validated by carrying out a series of experimental and numerical penetration tests with nine different gradations.The established particle library can be used to model aggregate mixtures and the proposed simulation framework is promising for optimizing the mixture gradation design numerically.

TEMPORAL AND SPATIAL DISCRETIZATION ON QUASI-3-D GROUNDWATER FINITE ELEMENT MODELLING TO AVOID SPURIOUS OSCILLATION

In this article, the fmite element solution of quasi-three-dimensional （quasi-3-D） groundwater flow was mathematically analyzed. The research shows that the spurious oscillation solution to the Finite Element Model （FEM） is the results choosing the small time step △t or the large element size L and using the non-diagonal storage matrix. The mechanism for this phenomenon is explained by the negative weighting factor of implicit part in the discretized equations. To avoid spurious oscillation solution, the criteria on the selection of △t and L for quasi-3-D groundwater flow simulations were identified. An application example of quasi-3-D groundwater flow simulation was presented to verify the criteria. The results indicate that temporal discretization scale has significant impact on the spurious oscillations in the finite-element solutions, and the spurious oscillations can be avoided in solving practical quasi-3-D groundwater flow problems if the criteria are satisfied.

3D random Voronoi grain-based models for simulation of brittle rock damage and fabric-guided micro-fracturing

A grain-based distinct element model featuring three-dimensional （3D） Voronoi tessellations （randompoly-crystals） is proposed for simulation of crack damage development in brittle rocks. The grainboundaries in poly-crystal structure produced by Voronoi tessellations can represent flaws in intact rockand allow for numerical replication of crack damage progression through initiation and propagation ofmicro-fractures along grain boundaries. The Voronoi modelling scheme has been used widely in the pastfor brittle fracture simulation of rock materials. However the difficulty of generating 3D Voronoi modelshas limited its application to two-dimensional （2D） codes. The proposed approach is implemented inNeper, an open-source engine for generation of 3D Voronoi grains, to generate block geometry files thatcan be read directly into 3DEC. A series of Unconfined Compressive Strength （UCS） tests are simulated in3DEC to verify the proposed methodology for 3D simulation of brittle fractures and to investigate therelationship between each micro-parameter and the model＇s macro-response. The possibility of numericalreplication of the classical U-shape strength curve for anisotropic rocks is also investigated innumerical UCS tests by using complex-shaped （elongated） grains that are cemented to one another alongtheir adjoining sides. A micro-parameter calibration procedure is established for 3D Voronoi models foraccurate replication of the mechanical behaviour of isotropic and anisotropic （containing a fabric） rocks. 2014 Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Production and hosting byElsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Optimization of buckling load for laminated composite plates using adaptive Kriging-improved PSO:A novel hybrid intelligent method

An effective hybrid optimization method is proposed by integrating an adaptive Kriging(A-Kriging)into an improved partial swarm optimization algorithm(IPSO)to give a so-called A-Kriging-IPSO for maximizing the buckling load of laminated composite plates(LCPs)under uniaxial and biaxial compressions.In this method,a novel iterative adaptive Kriging model,which is structured using two training sample sets as active and adaptive points,is utilized to directly predict the buckling load of the LCPs and to improve the efficiency of the optimization process.The active points are selected from the initial data set while the adaptive points are generated using the radial random-based convex samples.The cell-based smoothed discrete shear gap method(CS-DSG3)is employed to analyze the buckling behavior of the LCPs to provide the response of adaptive and input data sets.The buckling load of the LCPs is maximized by utilizing the IPSO algorithm.To demonstrate the efficiency and accuracy of the proposed methodology,the LCPs with different layers(2,3,4,and 10 layers),boundary conditions,aspect ratios and load patterns(biaxial and uniaxial loads)are investigated.The results obtained by proposed method are in good agreement with the literature results,but with less computational burden.By applying adaptive radial Kriging model,the accurate optimal resultsebased predictions of the buckling load are obtained for the studied LCPs.

Three-dimensional FDEM numerical simulation of failure processes observed in Opalinus Clay laboratory samples

This study presents the first step of a research project that aims at using a three-dimensional （3D） hybridfinite-discrete element method （FDEM） to investigate the development of an excavation damaged zone（EDZ） around tunnels in a clay shale formation known as Opalinus Clay. The 3D FDEM was first calibratedagainst standard laboratory experiments, including Brazilian disc test and uniaxial compression test. Theeffect of increasing confining pressure on the mechanical response and fracture propagation of the rockwas quantified under triaxial compression tests. Polyaxial （or true triaxial） simulations highlighted theeffect of the intermediate principal stress （s2） on fracture directions in the model： as the intermediateprincipal stress increased, fractures tended to align in the direction parallel to the plane defined by themajor and intermediate principal stresses. The peak strength was also shown to vary with changing s2. 2014 Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Production and hosting byElsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Scattering of seismic waves by three-dimensional large-scale hill topography simulated by a fast parallel IBEM

To solve seismic wave scattering by a large-scale three-dimensional(3-D) hill topography, a fast parallel indirect boundary element method(IBEM) is developed by proposing a new construction method for the wave field, modifying the generalized minimum residual(GMRES) algorithm and constructing an Open MP plus MPI parallel model. The validations of accuracy and efficiency show that this method can solve 3-D seismic response of a large-scale hill topography for broadband waves, and overcome the weakness of large storage and low efficiency of the traditional IBEM. Based on this new algorithm architecture, taking the broadband scattering of plane SV waves by a large-scale Gaussian-shaped hill of thousands-meters height as an example, the influence of several important parameters is investigated, including the incident frequency, the incident angle and the height-width and length-width ratio of the hill. The numerical results illustrate that the amplification effect on the ground motion by a near-hemispherical hill is more significant than the narrow hill. For low-frequency waves, the scattering effect of the higher hill is more pronounced, and there is only a single peak near the top of the hill. However, for high-frequency waves, rapid spatial variation of displacement amplitude appears on the hill surface.

Analysis of 3-D Frictional Contact Mechanics Problems by a Boundary Element Method

The development of two boundary element algorithms for solving 3-D, frictional, and linear elastostatic contact problems is reported in this paper. The algorithms employ nonconforming discreti- zations for solving 3-D boundary element models, which provide much needed flexibility in the bound- ary element modeling for 3-D contact problems. These algorithms are implemented in a new 3-D boundary element code and verified using several examples. For the numerical examples studied, the results using the new boundary element algorithms match very well with the results using a commercial finite element code, and clearly demonstrate the feasibility of the new boundary element approach for 3-D contact analysis.

Numerical simulation of 3-D water collapse with an obstacle by FEM-level set method

An interface capturing approach based on a level set function for simulating transient two-phase viscous incompressible flows is applied in this paper. A narrow-band signed distance function is adopted to indicate the phase fields and the interface. The multiphase flow is numerically solved by three stages with finite element method （FEM）： （1） solving a two-fluid Navier-Stokes （N-S） equations over the whole domain, （2） transporting the level set function with the obtained velocity field, （3） the level set function correction through a renormalization with continuous penalization which preserves the thickness of the interface. In this paper, the 3-D water colunm collapse with an obstacle is simulated, which yielded good agreement with the experimental data.

Inconsistent effect of dynamic load waveform on macro-and micro-scale responses of ballast bed characterized in individual cycle:a numerical study

Cyclic load is widely adopted in laboratory to simulate the effect of train load on ballast bed.The effectiveness of such load equivalence is usually testified by having similar results of key concerns of ballast bed,such as deformation or stiffness,while the consistency of particle scale characteristics under two loading patterns is rarely examined,which is insufficient to well-understand and use the load simplification.In this study,a previous laboratory model test of ballast bed under cyclic load is rebuilt using 3D discrete element method(DEM),which is validated by dynamic responses monitored by high-resolution sensors.Then,train load having the same magnitude and amplitude as the cyclic load is applied in the numerical model to obtain the statistical characteristics of inter-particle contact force and particle movements in ballast bed.The results show that particle scale responses under two loading patterns could have quite deviation,even when macro-scale responses of ballast bed under two loading patterns are very close.This inconsistency indicates that the application scale of the DEM model should not exceed the validation scale.Moreover,it is important to examine multiscale responses to validate the effectiveness of load simplification.

Classified denoising method for laser point cloud data of stored grain bulk surface based on discrete wavelet threshold

Surfaces of stored grain bulk are often reconstructed from organized point sets with noise by 3-D laser scanner in an online measuring system.As a result,denoising is an essential procedure in processing point cloud data for more accurate surface reconstruction and grain volume calculation.A classified denoising method was presented in this research for noise removal from point cloud data of the grain bulk surface.Based on the distribution characteristics of cloud point data,the noisy points were divided into three types:The first and second types of the noisy points were either sparse points or small point cloud data deviating and suspending from the main point cloud data,which could be deleted directly by a grid method;the third type of the noisy points was mixed with the main body of point cloud data,which were most difficult to distinguish.The point cloud data with those noisy points were projected into a horizontal plane.An image denoising method,discrete wavelet threshold(DWT)method,was applied to delete the third type of the noisy points.Three kinds of denoising methods including average filtering method,median filtering method and DWT method were applied respectively and compared for denoising the point cloud data.Experimental results show that the proposed method remains the most of the details and obtains the lowest average value of RMSE(Root Mean Square Error,0.219)as well as the lowest relative error of grain volume(0.086%)compared with the other two methods.Furthermore,the proposed denoising method could not only achieve the aim of removing noisy points,but also improve self-adaptive ability according to the characteristics of point cloud data of grain bulk surface.The results from this research also indicate that the proposed method is effective for denoising noisy points and provides more accurate data for calculating grain volume.

New Multipole Method for 3-D Capacitance Extraction

This paper describes an efficient improvement of the multipole accelerated boundary element method for 3-D capacitance extraction. The overall relations between the positions of 2-D boundary elements are considered instead of only the relations between the center-points of the elements, and a new method of cube partitioning is introduced. Numerical results are presented to demonstrate that the method is accurate and has nearly linear computational growth as O(n), where n is the number of panels/boundary elements. The proposed method is more accurate and much faster than Fastcap.

气吸振动式排种器种盘内种群运动的离散元分析

根据离散元法的基本思想,采用线性弹簧-阻尼-滑动接触力学模型,编写Matlab模拟程序,分析了气吸振动式精密排种器振动种盘内种群的三维运动规律。为了描述籽粒离散分布程度,给出了体积膨胀系数的计算公式。结果表明,种盘作小幅高频振动,种群可以产生向上抛掷运动而有效分离;膨胀系数随着振动强度的增加而增大,随种层厚度的增加而减小。分析了摩擦因数和碰撞恢复系数对不同层厚种子膨胀系数的影响。在初始层厚参数hs≈3.8、振动强度kv=5.65时,种子具有理想的运动状态,通过性能试验得到排种器的吸种率达98%。

棉籽颗粒在三自由度混联振动筛面上的运动规律

为深入研究和揭示多维振动筛筛面物料运动规律和透筛机理以及设计三自由度混联振动筛,基于机构拓扑结构理论构造了一种全解耦的三自由度混联机构2PRRR-P(2R),作为三自由度振动筛的主体激振机构;运用D-H变换矩阵推导出筛面的运动轨迹方程,并运用ADAMS软件对振动筛进行运动学仿真,验证了机构设计的可行性;基于离散元法对棉籽颗粒群在三自由度振动筛筛面上的筛分过程进行了模拟分析,表明筛面的三维运动能增加颗粒群在X和Y向的抛掷位移,使颗粒群平均透筛时间缩短;试验结果表明,筛面增加X向的振动后,分散度增加约54%,筛分效率增加约46%;筛面增加X向和Y向的振动后,分散度和筛分效率分别增加约152%和68%,比仅增加X向振动时分别增加约62%和15%,试验结果与EDEM仿真结果一致。研究表明,三自由度混联振动筛能实现筛面沿X、Y、Z向的三维独立振动,其自由度、振幅、频率等振动参数调节方便;筛面的三自由度振动利于颗粒物料在筛面上分散,可大幅提高筛分效率。该研究对进一步研究多维振动筛分机理、研制三自由度混联振动筛产品样机等提供了参考。

露天转地下开采诱发高边坡滑移机制研究

露天转地下开采过程中边坡稳定问题是矿山安全生产的关键技术和核心难题之一。以工程实例为基础,应用离散元数值模拟,选取合适的力学参数,运用3DEC、Matlab等软件系统,分析了地下开采对高大边坡稳定性的影响机制、滑移特点和后续变形发展趋势。研究结果表明:受露天与地下开采两者的复合采动作用的影响,滑移变形产生了叠加作用,地表的下沉曲线形成多个大小不同的下沉盆地,导致不同区域边坡岩体变形破坏程度也不同。根据数值模拟结果可知:地下采区的不同开采阶段诱发的移动角大小不同,开采厚度不同,上覆岩体的破坏程度也不同。所以,露天转地下开采中,边坡稳定性主要受到采空区处理方式和开采厚度等多重因素的影响;在边坡稳定性评价时,需要结合具体开采情况进行分析和评价。

节理玄武岩强度特性三维离散元压缩模拟试验

基于节理玄武岩几何结构特征和岩体强度REV尺度,利用三维离散元建立不同节理倾角下的数值模型试件,进行三轴压缩模拟试验分析。对柱状节理岩体在不同围压、不同节理倾角、不同参数比值下的强度变化规律性进行探讨,研究其各向异性比,获取并分析了柱状节理岩体在不同倾角下的等效力学参数。研究结果表明:节理玄武岩强度曲线在不同节理倾角和围压下近似呈U型分布;各向异性程度随围压升高以指数函数形式降低,以坝基原位岩体水平应力15 MPa估算,坝基处玄武岩体属于中等各向异性水平;在节理倾角75°时,对应的等效摩擦角为44.4°,等效黏聚力为1.15 MPa,参数计算值在原位测试值范围内。

潮湿原煤颗粒在三自由度混联振动筛中筛分效率研究

为研究潮湿难筛分原煤颗粒在两平移一转动三自由度混联振动筛中的筛分效率变化规律,基于三维离散元法,运用EDEM软件模拟潮湿原煤颗粒的筛分过程.自主设计了两平移一转动三自由度混联振动筛,以研究各振动参数对原煤颗粒筛分效率的影响;综合采用动态筛分效率和阻碍粒排出率作为模拟筛分效率的评定指标,得出各自由度振动组合中的最佳激振模式及振动方向对潮湿原煤颗粒在筛面运动的作用;以动态筛分效率为参考值,采用正交实验方法,分析各因素对筛分效率的影响,得出影响因素分别为:外在水分、振动自由度、频率、振幅;用优选的筛分方案进行离散元模拟实验,验证了多维振动有利于潮湿难筛分原煤颗粒的分散、透筛及防堵.

三维节理岩体计算模型的建立

面向三维岩体力学行为研究，给出了一种用于建立三维节理岩体数值计算模型的算法。同时，开发了相应的计算机软件。模型的建造中强调大型结构面或主结构面组的相对稳定性，及一些结构面组的统计特性。