Effect of contact location on the crushing strength of aggregates

[Display omitted] •A 3d discrete model of granular fracture is compared to impact test experiments.•The model is characterized by elastic-brittle interactions within a tessellation.•The number of contacts affects aggregate crushing.•We quantify the effect of contact location on the crushing of an aggregate.•A small pre-load on a contact may strongly modify the fracture pattern. This work deals with the effect of the contact location distribution on the crushing of granular materials. At first, a simple drop weight experiment was designed in order to study the effect of the location of three contact edges on the fracture pattern and the strength of a model cylindrical particle. The sample was placed on two bottom contact edges symmetrically distributed with reference to the vertical symmetry plane of the particle and subjected to an impact at the top. Angle α between the plane connecting a bottom contact edge to the centerline of the cylinder and a vertical plane was varied. The energy required to fracture the particle was shown to be an increasing function of angle α. Peculiar crack patterns were also observed. Then, we present a discrete model of grain fracture based on the work of Neveu et al. (2016) and employ it for a numerical analysis of the problem. The cylindrical particle is discretized by means of a space filling Voronoï tessellation, and submitted to a compression test for different values of angle α. In agreement with experiments, simulations predict a strong effect of the contact orientation on the strength of the particle as well as similar fracture patterns. The effect of the number of contacts is also explored and the importance of a potential pre-load is emphasized. We show that the fracture pattern: (i) is diametrical in case of diametrically opposed edges, (ii) has an inverted Y-shape in the case of three or four edges. Interestingly, in the latter case, if one of the lateral edges is slightly shifted, the fracture initiates and even propagates diametrically. Furthermore, the particle strength increases with the number of contacts.