Influence of Grain Shape to Shear Strength of 2D Cemented Granular Materials: A DEM Study

The mechanical strength of cemented granular materials is influenced by various factors, including grain shape. This study investigates the shear strength of a granular sample composed of clusters of grains of different shapes and smaller circular grains surrounding using 2D discrete element modeling. The clusters of grains are constructed by gluing smaller circular grains together, and the interaction between them is of strong bond, while the interaction between meso-grains and small grains is weakly bond. The bonding in this study is fully cemented involving normal/shear and rolling bonds. Biaxial testing is performed to determine the contribution of meso-grains to the overall shear strength, which is found to be influenced by their shape and other microscopic parameters such as coordination number or grain size.