Influences of Stiffness Ratio, Friction Coefficient and Strength Ratio on the Macro Behavior of Cemented Sand Based on DEM

Discrete Element Modeling of a fault reveals that viscous rolling relaxation controls friction weakening

“…One of the most well accepted approaches in direct modeling of granular media is the Discrete Element Method [10], which has been designed to consider those interactions between grains [11]. The method started with a simple linear contact law [12,13], but since then contact laws have been modified by [14]: (i) considering the grain crushing ening [15,16], (ii) investigating the effect of the pressure solution [17][18][19], (iii) exploring the effect of the healing [20,21], (iv) appreciating the influence of the cohesion in the matter [22][23][24] or (v) the cohesion induced by the pore fluid [25,26] among others. Also, it allows some to focus on the temperature influence, identifying the pressurization of the pore fluid [27,28] and grain melting [29,30] as the main phenomena driving the evolution of the frictional strength of a fault zone during large crustal events.…”