Effect of Rubber Particle Shape and Content on Shear Characteristics of Rubber-Sand Mixtures
WANG Pei
WU Shenghui
CHENG An
ZHUANG Haiyang
XU Changjie
Abstract：The effects of the content of square and flat rubber particles on the shear characteristics of rubber-sand mixtures were investigated through indoor direct shear tests.A discrete element method(DEM)model was established to reveal the macro-meso mechanical responses of rubber-sand mixtures,in which real river sand scanning data files and a particle clustering method were used to simulate sand particles and rubber particles,respectively.The results indicate that the internal friction angles of both types of rubber-sand mixtures decrease with the increase of rubber particle content,reaching a maximum value when the rubber particle content is 5%.Under the same rubber particle content,square rubber-sand mixture has higher shear strength,while flat rubber-sand mixture has a more significant dilatancy inhibition effect.The force chain network of rubber-sand mixture is dominated by"sand-sand"contacts,which bear the main stress.Compared to flat rubber-sand mixture,the square rubber-sand mixture has a higher proportion of"sand-sand"contacts,which is macroscopically manifested as higher shear strength.
Keywords：rubber-sand mixturerubber particle shapediscrete element methodparticle contactforce chain network
Publication Date：2026-01-31
Online Publishing Date：2026-03-17(First online date of this platform, not the publication date of the document)
Pages：8( 121-128 )