Two-scale modeling of granular materials: A FEM-FEM approach

In the present paper,a homogenization-based two-scale FEM-FEM model is developed to simulate compactions of visco-plastic granular assemblies.The granular structure consisting of two-dimensional grains is modeled by the microscopic fnite element method at the small-scale level,and the homogenized viscous assembly is analyzed by the macroscopic fnite element method at large-scale level.The link between scales is made using a computational homogenization method.The two-scale FEM-FEM model is developed in which each particle is treated individually with the appropriate constitutive relations obtained from a representative volume element,kinematic conditions,contact constraints,and elimination of overlap satisfed for every particle.The method could be used in a variety of problems that can be represented using granular media.