Coupled Evolution of Preferential Paths for Force and Damage in the Pre-failure Regime in Disordered and Heterogeneous, Quasi-Brittle Granular Materials

Abstract

A disordered and heterogeneous, quasi-brittle granular material can withstand certain levels of internal damage before global failure. This robustness depends not just on the bond strengths but also on the topology and redundancy of the bonded contact network, through which forces and damage propagate. Despite extensive studies on quasi-brittle failure, there still lacks a unified framework that can quantitatively characterize and model the interdependent evolution of damage and force transmission. Here we develop a framework to do so. It is data-driven, multiscale and relies solely on the contact strengths and topology of the contact network for material properties. The discrete element met..