Temporary Structure Formation in Granular Media under Periodic Shear: Numerical Modeling and Experiment

The authors implemented a series of lab-scale cyclic shear deformation tests of granular medium. The steady-state boundary conditions kept for the hundreds of thousands shear cycles result in the time-varying response of the test medium. The periods of stress fluctuations of the order of tens, hundreds and thousands cycles are observed in the medium. The time-varying response of the medium is connected with periodic formation and deformation of clusters and force chains in the medium. The DEM-based numerical modeling of cyclic shear of a granular medium with the same loading program as in the tests shows the adequacy of the discrete element method and the agreement of the numerical and experimental data.