Micro and macro mechanical characterization of artificial cemented granular materials

The focus of this study is the experimental characterization of cemented granular materials, with the aim of identifying the microscopic properties of the solid bonds and describing the extension to macroscopic mechanical strength of cemented samples. We chose to use artificially bonded granular materials, made of glass beads connected by solid paraffin bridges. The results of several sets of laboratory tests at different scales are presented and discussed. Micromechanical tests investigate the yield strength of single solid bonds between particles under traction, shearing, bending and torsion loading, as a function of variations in particle size, surface texture and binder content. Macro-scale tensile tests on cemented samples explore then the scale transition, including influence of confining walls through homothetic variations of the sample size. Despite the large statistical dispersion of the results, it was possible to derive and validate experimentally an analytical expression for micro tensile yield force as a function of the binder content, coordination number and grain diameter. In view of the data, an adhesive bond strength at the contact between bead and solid bond is deduced with very good accuracy and it is even reasonable to assume that the other threshold values (shear force, bending and torsion moments) are simply proportional to the tensile yield, thus providing a comprehensive 3D model of cemented bond. However, the considerable dispersion of the data at the sample scale prevents validation of the extended model for macroscopic yield stress. A final discussion examines the various factors that may explain intrinsic variability. By comparison with other more realistic systems studied in the literature in the context of bio-cementation, our artificial material nevertheless appears suitable for representing a cemented granular material. Being easy to implement, it could thus enable the calibration of discrete cohesion models for simulation of practical applications.