INF-CliC

This project was funded by the British Links via their Researcher Links programme. It enabled me to visit Dr Luis Felipe Prada-Sarmiento at Pontificia Universidad Javeriana (Colombia) fro a three-month period. This was then followed by a similar visit by Dr Prada-Sarmiento to Edinburgh Napier University.

While we had great(er) ambitions (as the image above reflects), within this project we developed an extensive DEM simulation programme. It focused on the undrained behaviour of coarse-grained soils. We used 3D assemblies of spheres under undrained (constant volume) conditions to assess the effects of initial density, stress level and particle size distribution on the line of instability. We then looked at the micro-scale interactions that underlie the observed macro-scale behaviour and explored the links between micro-mechanical parameters and some specific constitutive modelling approaches used to predict soils behaviour.