Effects of interparticle friction on the response of 3D cyclically compressed granular material

We numerically study the effect of inter-particle friction coefficient on the response to cyclical pure shear of spherical particles in three dimensions. We focus on the rotations and translations of grains and look at the spatial distribution of these displacements as well as their probability distribution functions. We find that with increasing friction, the shear band becomes thinner and more pronounced. At low friction, the amplitude of particle rotations is homogeneously distributed in the system and is therefore mostly independent from both the affine and non-affine particle translations. In contrast, at high friction, the rotations are strongly localized in the shear zone. This work shows the importance of studying the effects of inter-particle friction on the response of granular materials to cyclic forcing, both for a better understanding of how rotations correlate to translations in sheared granular systems, and due to the relevance of cyclic forcing for most real-world applications in planetary science and industry.