Author Description

This dissertation, "Exploring Critical-state Behaviour Using DEM" by Xin, Huang,, was obtained from The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong) and is being sold pursuant to Creative Commons: Attribution 3.0 Hong Kong License. The content of this dissertation has not been altered in any way. We have altered the formatting in order to facilitate the ease of printing and reading of the dissertation. All rights not granted by the above license are retained by the author. Abstract: The critical state soil mechanics (CSSM) framework originally proposed by Schofield & Wroth (1968) has been shown to capture the mechanical behaviour of soils effectively. The particulate implementation of the discrete element method (DEM) can replicate many of the complex mechanical characteristics associated with sand. This research firstly shows that the CSSM framework is useful to assess whether a DEM simulation gives a response that is representative of a real soil. The research then explores the capacity of DEM to extend understanding of soil behaviour within the CSSM framework. The influence of sample size on the critical-state response observed in DEM simulations that use rigid-wall boundaries was examined. The observed sensitivity was shown to be caused by higher void ratios and lower contact densities adjacent to the boundaries. When the void ratio (e) and mean stress (p') of the homogeneous interior regions were considered, the influence of sample size on the position of the critical state line (CSL) in e-log(p') space diminished. A parametric study on the influence of the interparticle friction (μ) on the load-deformation response was carried out. The macro-scale stress-deformation characteristics were nonlinearly related to μ and the particle-scale measures (fabric, contact force distribution, etc.) varied systematically with μ. The limited effect of increases in μ on the overall strength at high μ values (μ>0.5) is attributable to transition from sliding-d