Acceleration Strategies Based on an Improved Bubble Packing Method

The bubble packing method can generate high-quality node sets in simple and complex domains.However,its efficiency remains to be improved.This study is a part of an ongoing effort to introduce several acceleration schemes to reduce the cost of simulation.Firstly,allow the viscosity coefficient c in the bubble governing equations to change according the coordinate of the bubble which are defined separately as odd and normal bubbles,and meanwhile with the saw-shape relationship with time or iterations.Then,in order to relieve the over crowded initial bubble placement,two coefficients w1 and w2 are introduced to modify the insertion criterion.The range of those two coefficients are discussed to be w1=1,w2∈[0.5,0.8].Finally,a self-adaptive termination condition is logically set when the stable system equilibrium is achieved.Numerical examples illustrate that the computing cost can significantly decrease by roughly 80%via adopting various combination of proper schemes(except the uniform placement example),and the average qualities of corresponding Delaunay triangulation substantially exceed 0.9.It shows that those strategies are efficient and can generate a node set with high quality.

Representative elementary volume analysis of polydisperse granular packings using discrete element method

The representative elementary volume （REV） for three-dimensional polydisperse granular packings was determined using discrete element method simulations. Granular mixtures of various sizes and particle size distributions were poured into a cuboid chamber and subjected to uniaxial compression, Findings showed that the minimum REV for porosity was larger compared with the REV for parameters such as coordination number, effective elastic modulus, and pressure ratio. The minimum REV for porosity and other parameters was found to equal 15,10, and 5 times the average grain diameter, respectively. A study of the influence of sample size on energy dissipation in random packing of spheres has also confirmed that the REV size is about 15 times the average grain diameter. The heterogeneity of systems was found to have no effect on the REV for the parameters of interest for the narrow range of coefficient of uniformity analyzed in this paper. As the REV approach is commonly applied in both experimental and numerical studies, determining minimum REV size for polydisperse granular packings remains a crucial issue.

Effect of number of granulometric fractions on structure and micromechanics of compressed granular packings

The role of number of grain size fractions on structural and mechanical properties of uniaxially com- pressed granular packings with a uniform particle size distribution in terms of number of particles and with various particle size dispersities was studied using the discrete element method. The study addressed packing density, coordination number, contact forces, global stress, and energy dissipation in assemblies composed of frictional spheres. Packing density was found to change with increasing num- ber of granulometric fractions in mixtures with a small ratio of the diameters of the largest to smallest particles. Results indicated a certain value of particle size ratio below which the number of particle size fractions strongly affected packing density. The average coordination number decreased with increasing number of fractions. Detailed analysis of the effect of particle size dispersity on mechanical coordination number, including particles with no less than four contacts, revealed that, contrary to the average coordi- nation number, the mechanical coordination number increased with increasing ratio of the diameters of the largest to smallest particles in the sample. The composition of polydisperse samples strongly affected stress distribution and energy dissipation in granular packings.

Understanding the behavior of recycled aggregate concrete by using thermogravimetric analysis

The physio-chemical changes in concrete mixes due to different coarse aggregate(natural coarse aggregate and recycled coarse aggregate(RCA))and mix design methods(conventional method and Particle Packing Method(PPM))are studied using thermogravimetric analysis of the bydrated cement paste.A method is proposed to estimate the degree of hydration(a)from chemically bound water(WB).The PPM mix designed concrete mixes exhibit lower a.Recycled aggregate concrete(RAC)mixes exhibit higher and a after 7 d of curing,contrary to that after 28 and 90 d.The chemically bound water at infinite time(WBo)of RAC mixes are lower than the respective conventional concrete mixes.The lower WBo,Ca(OH)2 bound water,free Ca(OH)2 content and FT-IR analysis substantiate the use of pozzolanic cement in the parent concrete of RCA.The compressive strength of concrete and a cannot be correlated for concrete mixes with different aggregate type and mix design method as the present study confirms that the degree of hydration is not the only parameter which governs the macro-mechanical properties of concrete.In this regard,further study on the influence of interfacial transition zone,voids content and aggregate quality on macro-mechanical properties of concrete is needed.

Effect of particle polydispersity on micromechanical properties and energy dissipation in granular mixtures

A series of numerical tests was conducted to study the micromechanical properties and energy dissipation in polydisperse assemblies of spherical particles subjected to uniaxial compression. In general, distributed particle size assemblies with standard deviations ranging from 0% to 80% of the particle mean diameter were examined. The microscale analyses included the trace of the fabric tensor, magnitude and orien- tation of the contact forces, trace of stress, number of contacts and degree of mobilization of friction in contacts between particles. In polydisperse samples, the average coordination numbers were lower than in monodisperse assemblies, and the mobilization of friction was higher than in monodisperse assemblies due to the non-uniform spatial rearrangement of spheres in the samples and the smaller displacements of the particles. The effect of particle size heterogeneity on both the energy density and energy dissipation in systems was also investigated.