New Micromechanics Formulations for the Assessment of Elastic Moduli of Granular Assemblies

The elastic moduli of granular assemblies are sensitive to the confining conditions as well as the volume fractions of each of its constituents (i.e. solid, fluid, gas). Theoretical estimations using granular mechanics are based on assumed distributions of contact normals and branch vectors using idealized particle shapes and therefore cannot quantitatively predict the moduli. This paper presents a new method to use the moduli of the granular skeleton and those of the matrix to estimate the moduli of the composite and makes it possible to back-calculate the moduli of the skeleton from the moduli of the composite and the matrix.