Contact evolution in granular materials with inherently anisotropic fabric

This paper presents the results of two triaxial compression tests performed on approximately 9×10³ oblate spheroids (lentils) with different initial orientations with respect to the loading axis (approximately 30° and 60°). Typical stress-strain information is complemented with x-ray tomography scans every 1 % strain. Starting from an initial labelling of particles, a new technique is used to obtain unprecedented detail of tracking of all the particles through time. This rich dataset is analysed from the perspective of inter-particle contacts (building on previous metrological work on this subject) revealing that the mean contact orientation in both samples rotates towards the direction of σ₁ at a rate depending on the initial orientation. Different trends are observed for the alignment of contact orientation, with a significant evolution observed in the sample prepared at 30° which is not as pronounced as in the other sample.