Micromechanical study of elastic moduli of three-dimensional granular assemblies

In micromechanics of granular materials, relationships are investigated between micro-scale characteristics of particles and contacts and macro-scale continuum characteristics. For three-dimensional isotropic assemblies the macro-scale elastic characteristics are described by the bulk and the shear modulus, which depend on the micro-scale characteristics of the coordination number (i.e. the average number of contacts per particle) and the interparticle contact stiffnesses in directions normal and tangential to the contact.