eprintid: 10192058 rev_number: 6 eprint_status: archive userid: 699 dir: disk0/10/19/20/58 datestamp: 2024-05-14 14:54:22 lastmod: 2024-05-14 14:54:22 status_changed: 2024-05-14 14:54:22 type: article metadata_visibility: show sword_depositor: 699 creators_name: Liang, Luju creators_name: Cheng, Yi Pik creators_name: Fan, Xiaozhen creators_name: Ding, Zhi creators_name: Xu, Changjie title: Multi-Scale Research on the Mechanisms of Soil Arching Development and Degradation in Granular Materials with Different Relative Density ispublished: pub divisions: UCL divisions: B04 divisions: C05 divisions: F44 keywords: Soil arching; discrete element modeling; persistent homology; multi-scale analysis; relative density note: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third-party material in this article are included in the Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ abstract: Soil arching is significantly influenced by relative density, while its mechanisms have barely been analyzed. A series of DEM numerical simulations of the classical trapdoor test were carried out to investigate the multi-scale mechanisms of arching development and degradation in granular materials with different relative density. For analysis, the granular assembly was divided into three zones according to the particle vertical displacement normalized by the trapdoor displacement δ. The results show that before the maximum arching state (corresponding to the minimum arching ratio), contact forces between particles in a specific zone (where the vertical displacement of particles is larger than 0.1δ but less than 0.9δ) increase rapidly and robust arched force chains with large particle contact forces are generated. The variation in contact forces and force chains becomes more obvious as the sample porosity decreases. As a result, soil arching generated in a denser particle assembly is stronger, and the minimum value of the arching ratio is increased with the sample porosity. After the maximum arching state, the force chains in this zone are degenerated gradually, leading to a decrease in particle contact forces in microscale and an increase in the arching ratio in macroscale. The recovery of the arching ratio after the minimum value is also more significant in simulations with a larger relative density, as the degeneration of contact force chains is more obvious in denser samples. These results indicate the importance of contact force chain stabilities in specific zones for improving soil arching in engineering practice. date: 2024-04-24 date_type: published publisher: MDPI AG official_url: http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/fractalfract8050247 oa_status: green full_text_type: pub language: eng primo: open primo_central: open_green verified: verified_manual elements_id: 2273511 doi: 10.3390/fractalfract8050247 lyricists_name: Cheng, Yi lyricists_id: YPCHE61 actors_name: Flynn, Bernadette actors_id: BFFLY94 actors_role: owner full_text_status: public publication: Fractal and Fractional volume: 8 number: 5 pagerange: 247-247 citation: Liang, Luju; Cheng, Yi Pik; Fan, Xiaozhen; Ding, Zhi; Xu, Changjie; (2024) Multi-Scale Research on the Mechanisms of Soil Arching Development and Degradation in Granular Materials with Different Relative Density. Fractal and Fractional , 8 (5) p. 247. 10.3390/fractalfract8050247 <https://doi.org/10.3390/fractalfract8050247>. Green open access document_url: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10192058/1/fractalfract-08-00247.pdf