Study of cone penetration test in granular soil considering realistic particle shapes by discrete element method in 3D

Abstract

This paper aims to investigate the impact of the particle shape of granular soil particles on the results of cone penetration test (CPT). The discrete element method (DEM) was used to model the CPT in soil particle samples in 3D. The influence of particle shape is studied by parameters of overall regularity (OR), which is obtained from different mixing ratios of the real shape particles and spherical particles. The real particle shapes are obtained from a 3D laser scanner for the simulations. The particle refinement method is applied to enhance computation efficiency. The cone resistance and sleeve resistance curves are smoothed by fitting equations. The factors of OR of soil, particle friction coefficient, particle roundness and initial porosity were demonstrated to have considerable influences on the cone tip resistance and sleeve resistance. The displacement field and the rotational field were plotted to study the microscopic behaviour of granular soils during the penetration process.

Keywords:

• DEM
• CPT
• particle shape
• 3D laser scanning
• overall regularity

Disclosure statement

The authors report there are no competing interests to declare.

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author.

Additional information

Funding

We gratefully acknowledge the financial support provided by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [No. 51608112], the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities [No. 2242022k30055] and the Project of Jiangsu Provincial Transportation Engineering Construction Bureau [No. CX-2019GC02].