{"title":"Discrete element study of stresses and deformation on gravity retaining wall under static loading","authors":"Prerna Singh, Tanusree Chakraborty, Puneet Mahajan","doi":"10.1007/s10035-024-01422-6","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The study of gravity retaining wall supporting cohesionless soil is performed using the discrete element software Particle Flow Code (PFC), with emphasis on three-dimensional analysis at the grain scale, covering the transition from the initial state to the active state. The soil particles are represented by spherical balls and the rolling resistance linear contact model is used to include the shape effect. The rigid balls are connected by linear parallel bond contact model with a specified strength and stiffness to replicate the physical characteristics of retaining wall. The domain size is reduced by using high g criteria and scaling laws to enhance computational efficiency. The earth pressure coefficient obtained from the present study is compared with the existing analytical and experimental solutions. It is concluded that widely used Coulomb and Rankine methods underestimate the active earth pressure. The total earth thrust acting on the gravity wall is 67.3 kN/m acting at 0.301<i>H</i> above the wall base. The initial state shows a decrease in average coordination number from 5.0 to 3.3 at wall top indicating the debonding of grains and simultaneous decrease in density. In addition, the force chain distribution, porosity, lateral displacement, and axial displacement are investigated. A correlation between the earth pressure coefficient and lateral displacement is also established. The discrete analysis provided valuable insights into the particle-level mechanisms underlying the overall behavior of the retaining wall, contributing to a better understanding of its continuum response.</p><h3>Graphical Abstract</h3>\n<div><figure><div><div><picture><source><img></source></picture></div></div></figure></div></div>","PeriodicalId":49323,"journal":{"name":"Granular Matter","volume":"26 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.4000,"publicationDate":"2024-03-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Granular Matter","FirstCategoryId":"5","ListUrlMain":"https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10035-024-01422-6","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
The study of gravity retaining wall supporting cohesionless soil is performed using the discrete element software Particle Flow Code (PFC), with emphasis on three-dimensional analysis at the grain scale, covering the transition from the initial state to the active state. The soil particles are represented by spherical balls and the rolling resistance linear contact model is used to include the shape effect. The rigid balls are connected by linear parallel bond contact model with a specified strength and stiffness to replicate the physical characteristics of retaining wall. The domain size is reduced by using high g criteria and scaling laws to enhance computational efficiency. The earth pressure coefficient obtained from the present study is compared with the existing analytical and experimental solutions. It is concluded that widely used Coulomb and Rankine methods underestimate the active earth pressure. The total earth thrust acting on the gravity wall is 67.3 kN/m acting at 0.301H above the wall base. The initial state shows a decrease in average coordination number from 5.0 to 3.3 at wall top indicating the debonding of grains and simultaneous decrease in density. In addition, the force chain distribution, porosity, lateral displacement, and axial displacement are investigated. A correlation between the earth pressure coefficient and lateral displacement is also established. The discrete analysis provided valuable insights into the particle-level mechanisms underlying the overall behavior of the retaining wall, contributing to a better understanding of its continuum response.
期刊介绍:
Although many phenomena observed in granular materials are still not yet fully understood, important contributions have been made to further our understanding using modern tools from statistical mechanics, micro-mechanics, and computational science.
These modern tools apply to disordered systems, phase transitions, instabilities or intermittent behavior and the performance of discrete particle simulations.
>> Until now, however, many of these results were only to be found scattered throughout the literature. Physicists are often unaware of the theories and results published by engineers or other fields - and vice versa.
The journal Granular Matter thus serves as an interdisciplinary platform of communication among researchers of various disciplines who are involved in the basic research on granular media. It helps to establish a common language and gather articles under one single roof that up to now have been spread over many journals in a variety of fields. Notwithstanding, highly applied or technical work is beyond the scope of this journal.