Micromechanic Aspects of failure in geomaterials

Les régions de montagne sont parfois le siège de phénomènes dévastateurs brutaux, tels que les éboulements, les glissements de terrains, ou encore les avalanches. Fondamentalement, ces phénomènes sont issus de la rupture d’un volume de matériau qui va alors s’écouler sous l’effet de son poids propre. Prévoir ces phénomènes impose donc de mieux décrire la phase initiale de rupture. Ce travail de thèse s’inscrit dans cette volonté, en considérant le cas très général de la rupture dans un milieu granulaire. Pour cela, des simulations numériques utilisant une méthode aux éléments discrets ont été mises en œuvre, afin de vérifier la pertinence des critères usuels de rupture et d’instabilité. Dans un second temps, des analyses plus fines basées sur le travail du second ordre calculé à partir des variables microscopiques ont été menées afin de cerner comment évolue la microstructure de l’assemblage granulaire juste avant et pendant la rupture. Finalement, l’influence du chemin de chargement et des paramètres de contrôle sur la nature (effective ou non effective) et le mode (diffus ou localisé) de rupture a été examinée à travers une série d’essais biaxiaux sur deux échantillons numériques bidimensionnels (dense et moyennement dense).Landslides and avalanches are the most common brutal and devastating natural hazards in mountain regions. Basically, these phenomena are derived from the failure of a material volume which will then flow under the effect of its own weight. Therefore, predicting these phenomena requires a better description of the initial phase of failure. This work comes within this willingness, considering the very general case of failure in granular media. For this purpose, numerical simulations using a discrete element method were carried out in order to investigate the relevance of the common failure and instability criteria. In a second step, more detailed analyses based on the second order work computed from the microscopic variables were conducted in order to describe the evolution of the microstructure of a granular assembly just before and during the failure. Finally, the influence of the loading path and the control parameters on the nature (effective or non-effective) and the mode (diffuse or localized) of failure was discussed through a series of biaxial tests performed on two-dimensional numerical samples depicting respectively a dense and a medium dense dry sand

Aspects micromécaniques de la rupture dans les milieux granulaires

Les régions de montagne sont parfois le siège de phénomènes dévastateurs brutaux, tels que les éboulements, les glissements de terrains, ou encore les avalanches. Fondamentalement, ces phénomènes sont issus de la rupture d un volume de matériau qui va alors s écouler sous l effet de son poids propre. Prévoir ces phénomènes impose donc de mieux décrire la phase initiale de rupture. Ce travail de thèse s inscrit dans cette volonté, en considérant le cas très général de la rupture dans un milieu granulaire. Pour cela, des simulations numériques utilisant une méthode aux éléments discrets ont été mises en œuvre, afin de vérifier la pertinence des critères usuels de rupture et d instabilité. Dans un second temps, des analyses plus fines basées sur le travail du second ordre calculé à partir des variables microscopiques ont été menées afin de cerner comment évolue la microstructure de l assemblage granulaire juste avant et pendant la rupture. Finalement, l influence du chemin de chargement et des paramètres de contrôle sur la nature (effective ou non effective) et le mode (diffus ou localisé) de rupture a été examinée à travers une série d essais biaxiaux sur deux échantillons numériques bidimensionnels (dense et moyennement dense).Landslides and avalanches are the most common brutal and devastating natural hazards in mountain regions. Basically, these phenomena are derived from the failure of a material volume which will then flow under the effect of its own weight. Therefore, predicting these phenomena requires a better description of the initial phase of failure. This work comes within this willingness, considering the very general case of failure in granular media. For this purpose, numerical simulations using a discrete element method were carried out in order to investigate the relevance of the common failure and instability criteria. In a second step, more detailed analyses based on the second order work computed from the microscopic variables were conducted in order to describe the evolution of the microstructure of a granular assembly just before and during the failure. Finally, the influence of the loading path and the control parameters on the nature (effective or non-effective) and the mode (diffuse or localized) of failure was discussed through a series of biaxial tests performed on two-dimensional numerical samples depicting respectively a dense and a medium dense dry sand.SAVOIE-SCD - Bib.électronique (730659901) / SudocGRENOBLE1/INP-Bib.électronique (384210012) / SudocGRENOBLE2/3-Bib.électronique (384219901) / SudocSudocFranceF

Failure in granular media from an energy viewpoint

The present paper examines failure in discrete granular media with respect to its mode and nature based on energetic considerations through a comprehensive discrete element modelling computational analysis. The mode of failure refers to whether deformations will localize into an intense shear band or be diffuse. More subtly, a given failure mode can be effective with a burst of kinetic energy, or non-effective with a more controlled release of kinetic energy, depending on the control parameter. Physical quantities based on energy considerations with elementary decompositions of externally applied energy into elastic, plastic and kinetic contributions at the particle level are computed for a number of granular assemblies under a variety of failure scenarios. With the picture of a particle system experiencing macroscopic deformations according to underlying micro- and meso-mechanisms, it is concluded that computed grain-energy components depend on the microstructural detail that emerges as a function of loading program and control parameter. The relationship between elastic unloading outside a shear band and plastic dissipation inside it under both strain and stress control modes determines the genesis of shear banding in terms of plastic work dissipation minimization. Most interestingly, it is found that the energy signature inside the shear band in a dense granular packing is germane to energy characteristics of diffuse failure in a loose assembly, suggesting some similarities in microscopic failure processes between shear banding and diffuse failure

Granular plasticity, a contribution from discrete mechanics

International audienceFailures by divergence instabilities in rate-independent non-associated material, such as granular matter, can occur from mechanical states described by the plastic stress limit surface, but also from stress states strictly included within this surface. Besides, the failure mode may be localized, with for instance the formation of shear bands, or diffuse with a strain field remaining homogeneous. All these failures can be described in a unique framework where plastic limit stress states appear as particular cases of generalized limit states; and where the effective development of failure is characterized by the unbounded increase of response parameters linked by a failure rule (i.e. a generalized plastic flow rule), together with a bifurcation of the mechanical response from a quasi-static pre-failure response to a dynamic post-failure one. All these features are discussed and highlighted from direct numerical simulations performed with a discrete element model. Moreover, the second order work criterion directly related at the macroscopic scale to divergence instabilities, is shown to be also relevant at the scale of inter-particle contacts

Granular media failure along triaxial proportional strain paths

International audienceThis paper revisits a famous phenomenon sometimes observed in granular soils: liquefaction. Liquefaction occurs when all stress components vanish. According to the loading conditions, and the initial void ratio of the soil specimen, it can be shown that a convenient stress quantity passes through a peak, and then decreases. It is usually thought that the deviatoric stress peak also corresponds to a failure state, since a sudden collapse of the specimen is expected from this point according to the loading control adopted. After a brief review of the theoretical background describing the occurrence of such phenomena (liquefaction and failure), the results of laboratory tests run along a triaxial proportional strain loading path are presented. Then, the main conclusions drawn are discussed and confirmed from numerical tests using a discrete element method. In both approaches, it is shown that the choice of the stress response variable is fundamental, in order to properly detect such a failure

A multiscale description of failure in granular materials

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Micromechanical analysis of second order work in granular media

International audienceThis paper examines instabilities in granular materials from a microscopic point of view through numerical simulations conducted using a discrete element method on two three-dimensional specimens. The detection and the tracking of grain scale deformation mechanisms constitute the key point for a better understanding the failure process and puzzling out what lies behind the vanishing of the macro-scopic second order work. For this purpose, the second order work from microscopic variables, involving contact force and branch vector, was introduced and tracked numerically. Then, all contacts depicting negative values of the second order work were deeply investigated, especially their spatial distribution (homogeneity, agglomeration, dispersion...) within the specimen according to the density of the granu-lar assembly and to the loading direction. A set of comparisons has been considered in this context in order to highlight how a specimen is populated with such contacts whether it is loaded along a direction included within the plastic ten-sorial zone or along a direction for which the specimen is likely to behave elastically (elastic tensorial zone). Moreover, these comparisons concerned also loading directions within the cone of instability so that links between the vanishing of both microscopic and macroscopic second order works can be established and the local mechanisms responsible for failure occurrence may be figured out

A microstructural cluster-based description of diffuse and localized failures

ISBN 9781138027077International audienc