Finite element study of patterns of shear zones in granular bodies during plane strain compression

Numerical investigations of patterns of shear zones in granular bodies obtained during quasi-static plane strain compression tests were performed. The effect of a spatially correlated stochastic distribution of the initial void ratio and roughness of horizontal plates was analyzed. To describe a mechanical behavior of a cohesionless granular material during a monotonic deformation path in a plane strain compression test, a micro-polar hypoplastic constitutive model was used. FE calculations were carried out with both initially dense and initially loose cohesionless sand. A Latin hypercube method was applied to generate Gaussian truncated random fields of initial void ratio in a granular specimen. A weak correlation of the initial void ratio in both directions and its large standard deviation were assumed for all specimens. The horizontal boundaries were either ideally smooth or very rough. The FE results show similar patterns of shear zones as compared to experiments.