An Approximate Stress Distribution in a Conical Heap of Jammed Dry Granular Material

This paper develops an approximate stress distribution in a conical heap of jammed dry granular material loaded by gravity. An Eulerian formulation of elastic-inelastic response is used to explain why the residual stresses in the heap can be approximated by the current state of stress in the material. The proposed normalized stress components are functions of the normalized radial and vertical coordinates and are parameterized by only the angle of repose. It is shown that the vertical stress distribution applied to the base of the heap compares well with experiments using a rain procedure for sand deposition.