A Three-Phase Constitutive Model for Estimating the Elastic Moduli and The Strengths of Granular Composite Materials

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis paper proposes a three-phase constitutive model for estimating the elastic moduli and strength of granular composite. The three-phase granular composite material containing aggregate (inclusion), matrix, and aggregate/matrix interface were investigated in this study. It was observed that significant improvement in predictive capability for three-phase granular composite materials can be achieved by using the proposed method. By using micromechanics and adopting the double-inclusion concept initiated by Hori and Nemat-Nasser and the two-phase model introduced by Yang et al.; the predicted elastic moduli for three-phase granular composite materials were evaluated. Moreover, analytical formulas were obtained to predict the strengths of three-phase granular composite materials. The potential of the proposed framework was also explored by comparing the analytical predictions in this study with other analytical methods as well as experimental data of other studies.