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Critical state and continuum plasticity theories have been used in research and engineering practice in soil and rock mechanics for decades. These theories rely on postulated relationships between material stresses and strains. Some classical postulates include coaxiality between stress and strain rates, stress–dilatancy relationships, and kinematic assumptions in shear bands. Although numerical and experimental data have quantified the strains and grain kinematics in such experiments, little data quantifying grain stresses are available. Here, we report the first-known grain stress and local strain measurements in triaxial compression tests on synthetic quartz sands using synchrotron X-ray tomography and 3D X-ray diffraction. We use these data to examine the micromechanics of shear banding, with a focus on coaxiality, stress-dilatancy, and kinematics within bands. Our results indicate the following: 1) elevated deviatoric stress, strain, and stress ratios in shear bands throughout experiments; 2) coaxial principal compressive stresses and strains throughout samples; 3) significant contraction along shear bands; 4) vanishing volumetric strain but nonvanishing stress fluctuations throughout samples at all stages of deformation. Our results provide some of the first-known in situ stress and strain measurements able to aid in critically evaluating postulates employed in continuum plasticity and strain localization theories for sands.
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This content will become publicly available on November 18, 2025
Grain-Scale Stress Heterogeneity in Concrete from In-Situ X-Ray Measurements
Concrete features significant microstructural heterogeneity which affects its mechanical behavior. Strain localization in the matrix phase of concrete has received significant attention due to its relation to microcracking and our ability to quantify it with X-ray computed tomography (XRCT). In contrast, stresses in sand and aggregates remain largely unmeasured but remain critical for micromechanics-based theories of failure. Here, we use a combination of in-situ XRCT, 3D X-ray diffraction (3DXRD), and scanning 3DXRD to directly measure strain and stress within sand grains in two samples of mortar containing different sand volume fractions. Our results reveal that, in contrast to inclusion theories from continuum micromechanics, aggregates feature a broad distribution of average stresses and significant gradients in their internal stress fields. Our work furnishes the first known dataset with these quantitative stress measurements and motivates improvements in micromechanics models for concrete which can capture stress heterogeneity.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2125023
- PAR ID:
- 10556049
- Publisher / Repository:
- SSRN
- Date Published:
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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