A minimum principle is developed with the aim of determining the contact forces in a random packing of hard frictionless particles. The principle is an extension of the minimum complementary energy principle to this particular non linear mechanical system. Under the assumptions that a convex complementary energy exists and that relative displacements between particles are small, it allows us to synthesize the generation mechanism of the force network from an energetic point of view and provides, besides the existing methods (e.g. Discrete Element Method), a new method to analyze the contact force distribution in discrete particle systems. Here the contact force network in a packing of identical elastic frictionless spheres with Hertz contacts is determined and it is shown that it is unique and independent both by the value of the applied load and by the value of elastic constants. Numerical examples confirm that the contact forces so determined are consistent with previous experimental results

A minimum principle for contact forces in random packings of elastic frictionless particles / Liu, H.; Zhang, S. H.; Cheng, M.; Song, H. W.; Trentadue, Francesco. - In: GRANULAR MATTER. - ISSN 1434-5021. - 17:4(2015), pp. 475-482. [10.1007/s10035-015-0567-z]

A minimum principle for contact forces in random packings of elastic frictionless particles

TRENTADUE, Francesco
2015-01-01

Abstract

A minimum principle is developed with the aim of determining the contact forces in a random packing of hard frictionless particles. The principle is an extension of the minimum complementary energy principle to this particular non linear mechanical system. Under the assumptions that a convex complementary energy exists and that relative displacements between particles are small, it allows us to synthesize the generation mechanism of the force network from an energetic point of view and provides, besides the existing methods (e.g. Discrete Element Method), a new method to analyze the contact force distribution in discrete particle systems. Here the contact force network in a packing of identical elastic frictionless spheres with Hertz contacts is determined and it is shown that it is unique and independent both by the value of the applied load and by the value of elastic constants. Numerical examples confirm that the contact forces so determined are consistent with previous experimental results
2015
A minimum principle for contact forces in random packings of elastic frictionless particles / Liu, H.; Zhang, S. H.; Cheng, M.; Song, H. W.; Trentadue, Francesco. - In: GRANULAR MATTER. - ISSN 1434-5021. - 17:4(2015), pp. 475-482. [10.1007/s10035-015-0567-z]
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11589/1067
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