Investigation of Micro-mechanical Response of Asphalt Mixtures by a Three-dimensional Discrete Element Model

The micro-mechanical response of asphalt mixtures was studied using the discrete element method. The discrete element sample of stone mastic asphalt was generated first and the vehicle load was applied to the sample. A user-written program was coded with the FISH language in PFC3 D to extract the contact forces within the sample and the displacements of the particles. Then, the contact forces within the whole sample, in asphalt mastic, in coarse aggregates and between asphalt mastic and coarse aggregates were investigated. Finally, the movement of the particles in the sample was analyzed. The sample was divided into 15 areas and a figure was drawn to show how the balls move in each area according to the displacements of the balls in each area. The displacements of asphalt mastic balls and coarse aggregates were also analyzed. The experimental results explain how the asphalt mixture bears vehicle load and the potential reasons why the rutting forms from a micro-mechanical view.

Operator health risk evaluation of off-highway dump truck under shovel loading condition

To evaluate the operator health risk exposed to whole-body vibration(WBV) while the electric-shovel loads the ore on the truck body, the semi-truck mathematical model and 3-D virtual prototype were built to simulate the high shockwave of truck cab under the shovel loading. Discrete element method was utilized to accurately estimate the impacting force on the truck body. Based on the ISO 2631-5 criteria, the Sed is about 0.56 MPa in both models, which means that the dump operators have a high probability of adverse health effects over long-term exposure to these vibrations. The 4-DOF operator model was built to investigate the biodynamic response of seated-human body exposed to WBV in terms of the transmission of vibrations through the body. The results show that the response peak is in the frequency range of 4-6 Hz corresponding to the primary body resonant frequency.

Liquid bridge force between two unequal-sized spheres or a sphere and a plane

Liquid bridge force acting between wet particles is an important property in particle characterization. This paper deals with liquid bridge force between either two unequal-sized spherical particles or a sphere and a flat plate under conditions where gravitational effect arising from bridge distortion is negligible. In order to calculate the force of the liquid bridge efficiently and accurately, expressions of liquid configuration and liquid bridge force were derived by building a mechanical model, which assumes the liquid bridge to be circular in shape between either two unequal-sized spheres or a sphere and a plane. To assess the accuracy of the numerical results of the calculated liquid bridge forces, they were compared to the nuhlished experimental data.