Microparameters Calibration for Loose and Cemented Soil When Using Particle Methods

Abstract

A numerical model for the loose and the cemented component of the Torino subsoil is presented in this paper. The model is represented by a dense packing of nonuniform sized cylindrical particles with clumps by using the particle flow code in two dimensions. The paper shows how the synthetic specimens were calibrated to reproduce true material behavior giving insights over the influence of various parameters (such as platens velocity, particle shape, bond strength, etc.) on the mechanical behavior of bonded and unbonded assemblies. Loose and cemented ground are basically characterized by the same grain-size distribution, therefore the same numerical model is adopted. The effect of cementation is taken into account by introducing parallel bonds at contacts between the different particles. It is shown that the mechanical behavior of the Torino subsoil is well reproduced at the volume element scale. The results can be used to build representative numerical models to study engineering problems at the site scale.