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3D shape quantification and random packing simulation of rock aggregates

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DOI: 10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2020.119986

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 Construction and Building Materials 262 (2020) 119986

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Construction and Building Materials

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/conbuildmat

3D shape quantification and random packing simulation of rock

aggregates using photogrammetry-based reconstruction and discrete
element method
Lianheng Zhao a,b, Shuaihao Zhang a, Dongliang Huang a, Xiang Wang a,⇑, Yingbin Zhang c,d
a
School of Civil Engineering, Central South University, Changsha, Hunan 410075, China
b
Key Laboratory of Heavy-haul Railway Engineering Structure, Ministry of Education, Central South University, Changsha, Hunan 410075, China
c
Key Laboratory of Transportation Tunnel Engineering, Ministry of Education, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu 610031, China
d
Department of Geotechnical Engineering, School of Civil Engineering, Southwest Jiaotong University, 111, 2nd Ring Road, North 1 Duan, Chengdu 610031, China

h i g h l i g h t s

Base on photogrammetry, a photographic system is developed to reconstruct 3D rock aggregates.

The shape of rock aggregates is analysed quantitatively and statistically.

The effects of the elongation and flatness on random packing behaviours of rock aggregates are investigated quantitatively.

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Rock aggregates are commonly used granular material in building engineering. The 3D reconstruction of
Received 8 January 2020 realistic rock aggregates is significant for the study of their mechanical properties in numerical simula-
Received in revised form 14 June 2020 tion. This paper aims to create an efficient particle reconstruction system and analyse the effects of par-
Accepted 15 June 2020
ticle shapes on the random packing properties of rock aggregates. First, a photographic system is
established to obtain 2D images of rock aggregates from multiple shooting directions, and the pho-
togrammetric technology is employed to reconstruct the 3D model of the rock aggregate. A total of
Keywords:
1000 realistic 3D models of rock aggregates are obtained. Second, four shape indexes, i.e., elongation
Rock aggregate
3D reconstruction
index (EI), flatness index (FI), convexity index (CI), and roundness (RD), are employed to characterize
Photographic system the shapes of the obtained rock aggregates. The results of statistical analysis show that the probability
Photogrammetry distribution of rock aggregates’ shape indexes can be well fitted by Gaussian function. Third, the initial
Shape index samples with different EI and FI values are generated through a series of computational algorithms based
Discrete element simulation on MATLAB and then are imported into PFC3D for discrete element simulation. Subsequently, random
Random packing packing of rock aggregates is carried out by two different methods, i.e., the gravity falling method
(GFM) and the isotropic compression method (ICM). The results show that the EI and FI have significant
influences on packing density, coordination number, fabric anisotropy, and contact force between the
samples.
Ó 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction effects of meso-fabric on the deformation behavior of sandy soil

As a kind of particulate building material widely existing in nat-
ure, rock aggregates have always been a research hotspot in the
field of construction engineering. The study of the shear strength
and deformation mechanism of granular materials has important
guiding significance for industrial and engineering practice. The
⇑ Corresponding author: School of Civil Engineering, Central South University,
Changsha, Hunan 410075, China
E-mail address: wang.xiang@csu.edu.cn (X. Wang).
were reported by Oda et al. [1] in an earlier study, and some pri-
mary results have been found. At present, many physical experi-
ments and numerical simulations have been carried out [2–11].
The macro-physical and mechanical properties of granular materi-
als are strongly correlated with the micro-texture. For example, by
establishing a rock strength fractal model based on the fractal
dimension of particle size and particle size ratio, fractal theory
can be used to explain the influence of particle size and particle
shape on rock strength [12]. The effects of particle shape on the
meso-mechanical properties (coordination number, contact force

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2020.119986
0950-0618/Ó 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
2 L. Zhao et al. / Construction and Building Materials 262 (2020) 119986
Nomenclature
a, b, c Three sides of oriented bounding box
Aicorner The area of each corner region
CNi The number of adjacent particles in contact with
particle-i
EI, FI, CI, RD Shape indexes of rock aggregates
kinsc Curvature of the maximum inscribed sphere of particles
kiGauss Gauss curvature of the corner region
m The total number of shape indexes
n The total number of corner regions
nk The kth first unit fabric vector
N The total number of all fabric vectors
NP The total number of particles
Ns The total number of measuring spheres
Rx(b), Ry(c), Rz(a) Rotation matrix of particles around three coor-
dinate axes
probability distribution, fabric anisotropy, etc.) can be studied by
simulating particles with different sizes and slenderness ratios
[13].
Early studies of granular materials focused on the mechanical
properties of granular materials using physical mechanics experi-
ments [14,15], which require physical apparatus, are expensive
and have considerable uncertainty. To overcome the difficulties
of physical experiments, a series of numerical particle simulation
methods have been developed, e.g., discrete element method
(DEM), which is a widely used numerical simulation method
[16–19]. Previous studies have shown that the shape of the parti-
cles has an essential influence on the structure and mechanical
properties of aggregates [15,20]. Therefore, the choice of particle
shape is crucial in the discrete element numerical simulation.
In the past, scholars used particles with regular shapes, such as
spheres [21], ellipsoids [14], and polyhedra [22], to study the
mechanical properties of the aggregates. On this basis, Zhao et al.
[13] used superellipsoidal particles to study the effect of shape
on the packing characteristics of particles. However, there have
been few reports on the mechanical properties of real particles.
In recent years, with the development of computer technology, it
has been possible to build a refined digital model of real particles.
Therefore, this paper focuses on studying the effect of the realistic
shapes of natural rock aggregates on their mechanical properties.
At present, there are two main ways to construct 3D particle
digital models. One is to build the particle contour based on the
relevant theory and to establish a series of digital particle contour
information. For example, Mollon and Zhao et al. [23] used a Four-
ier transform to reconstruct real particles based on random field
theory; Su et al. used a spherical harmonic function [24] and Four-
ier series [25] to generate sand particles. Although it is convenient
to obtain particles by these methods, the differences between the
obtained particles and the real particles need to be further studied.
Another method is to obtain the contour information of real parti-
cles through image processing technology [26–29]. For example,
Huang et al. [26] constructed the 3D contour of particles by taking
2D contours of particles in three orthogonal directions based on a
series of mathematical transformations. The particles constructed
by this method can generally reflect the shape characteristics of
real particles, e.g., elongation and flatness, but cannot describe
their local details, e.g., convexity and roughness. Subsequently,
some new techniques have emerged to reconstruct 3D objects,
such as X-ray scanning [28], CT scanning [27], and laser scanning
[30]. These techniques can reconstruct models with high precision,
but they are expensive and cannot be applied to obtain a large
VA, VCH The volume and the volume of the minimum circum-
scribed convex polyhedron of the particle
Viparticle, Visphere The volume of particle in the i-th measuring
sphere and the volume of i-th measuring sphere
w1, w2, w3 Coefficients of Gaussian function
x, y, z Initial coordinates of particles
x’, y’, z’ Coordinates of particles after rotation
X, Y, Z Coordinates of particles after scaling
a, b, c Angles between the bounding box of particles and three
coordinate axes
k1, k2, k3 Three eigenvalues of matrix of the second-order tensor
kd Deviatoric eigenvalue
ga, gc Scaling factors of particles along x-axis and z-axis
u Packing density
U Fabric tensor
number of particles. Based on the above considerations, pho-
togrammetric technology is used to reconstruct 3D rock aggregates
[31]. First, a photographic system is established to obtain 2D pho-
tographs of rock aggregates from multiple directions. Then, based
on the 2D photographs, a 3D model is constructed by photogram-
metry, and a total of 1000 rock aggregates are characterized. Com-
pared with the properties of the same rock aggregate model
obtained by laser scanning, the accuracy of the 3D model obtained
by this method is higher, and the error is at the submillimeter
level.
Many scholars have studied the quantitative characterization of
particle shape. For example, Mollon et al. [23] used several shape
indexes, e.g., flatness, elongation, and aspect ratio, to quantitatively
characterize the shape of particles. Based on the literature
[23,27,32–37], four shape indexes have been used to quantitatively
describe the shape of particles in this paper. The shape indexes of
1000 rock aggregates are calculated, laying a foundation for the
follow-up study of the mechanical properties of rock aggregates.
To study the mechanical properties of granular materials, it is
necessary to prepare samples first. Random packing, which is ubiq-
uitous in nature and engineering, is a fundamental way to prepare
samples of granular materials. The packing structure has a signifi-
cant influence on the physical and mechanical properties of gran-
ular materials [14,16], such as the shear strength and
deformation characteristics. The initial anisotropy, which is one
of the representative features of granular materials, is determined
during packing [38]. The packing structure has a significant influ-
ence on the physical and mechanical properties of granular mate-
rials such as shear strength and deformation characteristics
[15,20]. In this paper, the initial sample is prepared by random
sampling of rock aggregates in MATLAB, and then the ‘‘bubble
packing” algorithm is used to generate clumps. The gravity falling
method and isotropic compression method are used to create
packing samples. The effects of the particle shape on the macro-
and microscale packing properties (packing density, coordination
number, fabric anisotropy, probability distribution of contact force,
etc.) of rock aggregates are analyzed.
Based on photogrammetric technology, this paper established a
photographic system to obtain 3D morphological information of
rock particles more economical and convenient, after which 1000
digital models are acquired. Then the effects of EI and FI on the
micro and macro mechanical properties of random packing are
analyzed in detail. The following sections are organized as: (1) In
the second section, the process of obtaining the 3D digital model
of rock aggregates by photogrammetry is described. (2) In the third
 L. Zhao et al. / Construction and Building Materials 262 (2020) 119986
section, the shape index of the rock aggregate model is calculated
and analyzed statistically. (3) In the fourth section, the gravity fall-
ing method and isotropic compression method are used to gener-
ate samples to study the packing properties of particles. The
effects of particle shape parameters (EI, FI) on the micro- and
macro scale packing properties are analyzed. (4) The fifth section
draws the conclusion of this paper.
2. Acquisition of 3D models of rock aggregates
Digital photogrammetry [39–41], which is a technology based
on computer technology, digital image processing, image match-
ing, pattern recognition, and other disciplines to extract the geo-
metric information of the object in digital form, is applied to
reconstruct 3D models of rock aggregates.
2.1. Equipment and rock aggregates
The equipment used in the 3D reconstruction of rock aggregates
is as follows:

Digital camera: Canon 600D, advanced photograph system
(APS) frame and single lens reflex (SLR) digital camera, 18-
megapixel APS-C CMOS sensor (size: 22.3  14.9 mm) and
EXPEED 2 image processing chip, 1.6  lens conversion
coefficient.

Camera lens: EF-S 18–135 mm, 67 mm filter size.

Turntable: adjustable speed, 0 °/s-60 °/s.

LED shadowless lamp band: adjustable brightness.

Other components: camera trigger, computer, and white back-
ground panel.
The particle used for photography is a kind of rock aggregate
from Hunan Province, China. The parent rock is granite, and the
material density is 2.74 g/cm3. If the particle size is too small,
the images’ accuracy will be reduced; if the particle size is too
large, the photograph space will be increased and it is not easy
to transport these materials. Therefore, the particle size was con-
trolled to 31.5 mm–90 mm by screening. Part of the rock aggre-
gates is illustrated in Fig. 1.
2.2. Photographic system
When using digital photogrammetry technology to construct
the 3D model of rock aggregates, the adjacent 2D digital images
Fig. 1. Display of some rock aggregates.
3
of the rock particles need to have a certain degree of overlap to
ensure that enough photos cover the whole surface of the particles.
An insufficient number of images will result in missing some fea-
ture points on the surface of particles, and an excessive number
of images will significantly increase the workload of computer cal-
culation. Therefore, the key to reconstructing 3D rock aggregates
by photogrammetry is a high-quality image with appropriate den-
sity. In addition, low-quality images result in invalid objects. Con-
sequently, it is necessary to adjust the proper camera parameters
to obtain clear images with a considerable depth of field (maximiz-
ing the focus area). In this study, the distance between the lens and
the object is approximately 0.3 m. It is appropriate to adjust the
aperture to around 8 and the sensitivity to about 800. Note that
these parameters, which depend on many factors (such as the
lighting conditions), need to be carefully optimized.
Based on the above considerations, a photographic system is
built to obtain photographs of rock aggregates from multiple direc-
tions, as shown in Fig. 2. To reduce the interference of external fac-
tors on the quality of photographs, rock aggregates are taken in a
photo studio, as shown in Fig. 2c. First, rock aggregates (Fig. 2a)
are placed on a turntable (Fig. 2b). At the front of the photo studio,
three cameras are fixed in the shooting window to take pho-
tographs from three different camera positions: high, middle, and
low. The angles between the line of sight of the three cameras
and the horizontal plane are 60 degrees (Fig. 2d), 30 degrees
(Fig. 2e), and 0 degrees (Fig. 2f). The button on the right side of
the camera box (Fig. 2g) adjusts the brightness of the LED light
and the rotation speed of the turntable. In addition, three calibra-
tion points are affixed to the rock aggregate to calculate the actual
size, as shown in Fig. 2i– k.
After the equipment is laid out, the rotation speed of the turn-
table is set to 5 degrees/s. Three cameras are set to take a picture
every 6s. Thus, when the turntable rotates 360 degrees, a total of
36 photographs can be obtained from the three cameras. After
one round of photographing, only the morphological information
of the bottom of the particles has not been collected, so it is neces-
sary to rotate one side of the particle so that the bottom of the rock
aggregates can be exposed for another round of photographing. In
this way, a total of 72 photographs can be obtained for each rock
aggregate.
2.3. 3D reconstruction of rock aggregates
The Agisoft Photoscan software v1.4.3 (http://www.agisoft.com)
is used to reconstruct the 3D particles in this section. The specific
process is as follows:
Step 1: Align Photos. Namely, through feature point recognition
and registration, the parts of each photo are restored to the corre-
sponding positions in 3D space. First, the 2D photos (Fig. 3a) of
each projection are imported into Agisoft Photoscan and then
aligned. The accuracy of the photos can be preset. There are five
options: highest, high, middle, low, and lowest; the selected option
determines the sampling rate of feature points collected from pho-
tos. The higher the accuracy is, the better the sampling effect is,
and the finer the 3D model is, but at the same time, it will consume
more computing time. High precision was selected for this study.
After aligning the photos, the sparse point clouds are constructed
by sparse reconstruction using Structure-from-Motion (SfM) tech-
nique [42,43], as shown in Fig. 3b.
Step 2: Establishing Dense Point Clouds. When the recon-
structed particle surface is confirmed to be complete, dense point
clouds can be generated. For rock particle selection, medium or
high precision is sufficient. In this process, sparse point clouds
are used as seed points, and additional 3D points are determined
by using block-matching-based multi-view 3D dense reconstruc-
tion [44]. After the solution is completed, a model consisting of
4 L. Zhao et al. / Construction and Building Materials 262 (2020) 119986

Fig. 2. Photographic system: (a) rock aggregate; (b) turntable; (c) camera box; (d) high position camera; (e) middle position camera; (f) low position camera; (g) buttons for
adjusting the brightness of the light; (h) buttons for adjusting the speed of turntable; (i–k) calibration points.

Fig. 3d. In the process of mesh generation, the interpolation option

can be checked so that the software can automatically fill through
point cloud interpolation if there are a few missing points on the
surface of the model. 3D data files such as STL format can be
derived from the mesh-generated model for subsequent calcula-
tion and simulation.
Based on the workflow as introduced above, a total 1000 rock
aggregates are reconstructed in the format of 3D triangular mesh
model. Fig. 4 illustrates the examples of the reconstructed 3D mod-
els corresponding to the rock aggregates in Fig. 1.

2.4. Model accuracy verification

To explain the accuracy of the photogrammetry method, the 3D

models of rock aggregates obtained in this study are compared
with the models obtained by a laser scanner. The particles obtained

Fig. 3. The process of 3D reconstruction of rock aggregates: (a) 2D projections of

each rock aggregate from multiple directions; (b) sparse point clouds; (c) dense
point clouds; (d) mesh generation.

dense point clouds will appear, which can reflect more details on
the morphology of boulder particles than sparse point clouds, as
shown in Fig. 3c.
Step 3: Mesh Generation. The 3D mesh of each rock aggregate
can be reconstructed by the Poisson method [45], as shown in Fig. 4. Particles obtained by 3D reconstruction corresponding to Fig. 1.
 L. Zhao et al. / Construction and Building Materials 262 (2020) 119986 5

by photogrammetry are aligned with those obtained by laser scan-
ning to compare their coincidence degree based on the free version
of the software GOM Inspect (2017 Hotfix 3, Rev. 105428, build
2017-11-15, available at https://www.gom.com). First, the grains
obtained by photogrammetry (Left column in Fig. 5, i.e., a1, b1,
c1, d1) are translated to coincide with the centroid of the grains
obtained by laser scanning (Middle column in Fig. 5, i.e., a2, b2,
c2, d2). Then, with the laser scanning model as a reference, the sur-
face of each particle is matched, and the deviation is calculated and
covered with different colors on the surface mesh. The deviation
histogram is displayed next to the color map (Right column in
Fig. 5, i.e., a3, b3, c3, d3).
Table 1 shows additional information (the peak deviation, aver-
age deviation, and standard deviation) regarding the comparison of
the model coincidence. The model obtained by photogrammetry in
this paper can achieve submillimeter accuracy. Compared with
other scholars’ research [46,47], the accuracy can meet the
requirements.
3. Quantitative characterization of rock aggregate shapes
In this section, the shapes of irregular rock aggregates are ana-
lyzed, and four shape indexes are summarized and calculated.
3.1. Shape indexes
Based on the relevant research results [32–37], four commonly
used shape indexes are used to quantify the shape of rock aggre-

Fig. 5. Model accuracy verification of rock aggregates (CP: calibration point).

6 L. Zhao et al. / Construction and Building Materials 262 (2020) 119986

Table 1
Deviation of particle contour obtained by photogrammetry and laser scanning.

Number a1–a3 b1–b3 c1–c3 d1–d3

Maximum deviation (mm) 0.382 0.282 0.633 0.565
Mean deviation (mm) 0.045 0.067 0.118 0.104
Standard deviation (mm) 0.038 0.048 0.081 0.071

gates in this section, namely, the flatness index (FI), elongation
index (EI), convexity index (CI) and roundness (RD).
The EI and FI describe the basic shape of particles, such as
spheres, ellipsoids, or spindles. The definitions of the EI and FI
are derived from the oriented bounding box (OBB) [48], which is
the cuboid best matching the object, as shown in Fig. 6a. The def-
initions of flatness and elongation are shown in Formulas (1) and
(2) [23].
c particles, with kinsc = 1/Rinsc. kiGauss is the Gauss curvature of the cor-
FI ¼
b ner region. The calculation method of kiGauss can be found in the book
b ber of corner regions. The closer the value of the CI is to 1, the smal-
EI ¼
a ler the degree of concavity and convexity of the particles is; the
where the edge lengths in three directions of the OBB satisfy
a > b > c. The closer the FI value is to 0, the more oblate the particle
is; the closer the EI value is to 0, the more prolate the particle is.
Based on the EI and FI, the shape characteristics of the particle
are further refined and analyzed by the CI and RD [27]. The CI
describes how closely a particle represents a convex hull and is
determined by the volume of the particle and the volume of the
minimum circumscribed convex polyhedron of the particle con-
tour. As shown in Fig. 6b, the original particle is represented by
the blue part, and the minimum circumscribed convex polyhedron
of the particle is represented by the yellow part. The definition of
the CI is shown in Formula (3) [27].
VA
CI ¼
V CH
where VA is the volume of the particle, VCH is the volume of the min-
imum circumscribed convex polyhedron.
A novel method to evaluate 3D roundness based on local curva-
ture values [27] is used in this paper. In this method, the RD is
determined by the Gaussian curvature of the vertex of the mesh
on the particle surface and the curvature of the maximum
inscribed sphere, as shown in Fig. 7a, and the definition of RD is
shown in Formula (4). Neighboring triangles (namely, all triangles
that share a vertex) whose Gauss curvature of mesh vertices is
greater than the curvature of the maximum inscribed sphere are
defined as corner regions [27,49], as shown in the yellow part of
Fig. 7b.
P
n
Ai corner kinsc
ki Gauss
RD ¼ i¼1
ð4Þ
P
n
Ai corner
i¼1
where kinsc is the curvature of the maximum inscribed sphere of
ð1Þ
[49]. Aicorner is the area of each corner region, and n is the total num-
ð2Þ
closer the value of the RD is to 0, the more rounded the edges and
corners of the particles are.
3.2. Sensitivity analysis
The model obtained by digital photogrammetry is highly
refined, and the number of triangular meshes on the surface of par-
ticles is as high as millions. However, the over-refined model is
inefficient in calculating shape indexes, so simplified particle mod-
els are used in this section to calculate shape indexes. Based on
software Geomagic Studio 12, the number of triangular meshes on
the particle surface can be arbitrarily simplified in batches (As
shown in Fig. 8). However, the number of the mesh should not
ð3Þ be too small. Otherwise, the accuracy of the shape indexes will
be affected. Therefore, the change in the shape indexes of rock
aggregates and computation time with the number of particle sur-
face meshes is analyzed. The purpose is to determine a suitable
number of surfaces meshes, which considers both computational
efficiency and accuracy, and to provide a reference for other
researchers.
Here, 1000 rock aggregates are simplified to 250 meshes, 500
meshes, 1000 meshes, 2000 meshes, 3000 meshes, 4000 meshes,
and 5000 meshes. Then, the CDF (Cumulative Distribution Func-
tion) of shape indexes of 1000 particles are analyzed, as shown
in Fig. 9. As the number of meshes increases from 250 to 5000,

Fig. 6. Calculation of EI, FI and CI of rock aggregates.

 L. Zhao et al. / Construction and Building Materials 262 (2020) 119986
Fig. 7. Calculation of RD of rock aggregates.
Fig. 8. Simplification of 3D rock aggregates (a) initial particle: 1063384 triangular
meshes (b)–(d) simplified particles: the number of triangle mesh are 10000, 3000,
1000 respectively.
the following rules can be observed from Fig. 9: (1) the probability
cumulative curves of EI and FI barely change (Fig. 9a–b); (2) the
probability cumulative curves of CI change slightly with the
increase of mesh number (Fig. 9c); (3) the probability cumulative
curves of RD varies greatly with the increase of mesh number
(Fig. 9d). These laws reveal that the shape indexes of the macro
scale (EI, FI) are almost not affected by the number of meshes,
but the shape indexes of micro scale (CI, RD) are affected by the
number of meshes to varying degrees.
To verify the rules in Fig. 9, a particle is randomly selected,
and the change of shape index values and calculation time with
different mesh numbers is analyzed. As can be seen from
Fig. 10, the values of EI and FI almost keep unchanged with the
increasing of mesh number while the value of CI and RD change
slightly and dramatically, respectively, which is in consist with
Fig. 9. However, the calculation time of EI, FI and RD vary greatly
with the number of meshes and the calculation time of CI is not
affected by the number of meshes (As shown in Section 3.1, the
algorithm for calculating EI and FI is the same, so their calculation
time is the same). This indicates that a small number of meshes
can be used in the calculation of EI and FI, which can improve
the calculation efficiency without losing the calculation accuracy,
while an appropriate number of meshes need to be used in the
calculation of CI and RD to consider both the accuracy and effi-
ciency. In the present study, the number of meshes used in calcu-
lating EI and FI is 1000. Because even if the number of meshes is
increased, the calculation accuracy will not be changed, and it is
also a waste of calculation time. It can be seen from Figs. 9c and
7
10c, the probability cumulative curve and the value of CI tend to
be stable when the number of meshes reaches 4000. Meanwhile,
the effect of calculation time can be ignored in the calculation of
CI. Therefore, the number of meshes adopted in calculating CI is
determined to be 4000. The probability cumulative curve and
the value of RD are greatly affected by the number of meshes
(Figs. 9d and 10d), because the identified corners on the surfaces
are influenced by the number of meshes to some extent [27]. The
number of meshes is determined to be 1500 in consist with the
article [27] when calculating the RD of particles.
3.3. Statistical shape quantification
Previous studies [36,37] have shown that the shape index of
granular materials has significant statistical characteristics. In this
section, the probability distributions are used to describe the dis-
tribution characteristics of the shape index of rock aggregate. If
x1, x2, . . ., xm are the value of variable x, and p1, p2, . . ., pm are the
probability corresponding to the xi (1  i  m), then the probability
distribution of discrete random variable X (i.e., EI, FI, CI, RD.) is as
follows:
X
m
PðX ¼ xi Þ ¼ pi ; ði ¼ 1; 2; :::; m; P i ¼ 1Þ ð5Þ
i¼1
To facilitate processing, the median value xi of each interval [xi-
t/2, xi + t/2] (Where t is the width of the bar in the histogram) of the
histogram is taken as the representative value of variable x, as
shown in Fig. 11. Then pi is the percentage of the number of shape
indexes in the range [xi-t/2, xi + t/2] to the total number of parti-
cles. Gauss function is used to fit the probability distribution of
shape indexes (Black dot in Fig. 11). The form of the Gauss function
is:
ðxw2 Þ2

f ðxÞ ¼ w1  e 2w3 2
ð6Þ
The fitting results of the Gaussian function are shown as the
dotted lines in Fig. 11. Meanwhile, the coefficients of Gaussian
function (i.e., w1, w2, w3) and goodness of fit R2 are marked beside
each curve. It should be noted that the closer the statistic R2 is to 1,
the higher the goodness of fit of the model is. The results indicate
that the Gaussian function can well fit the probability distribution
of shape indexes, and the goodness of fit is above 90%.
4. Discrete element simulation for random packing of rock
aggregates
Based on the rock aggregates obtained in the previous section,
the random packing of the particles is analyzed, and the effects
of the EI and FI on the packing properties are studied.
8 L. Zhao et al. / Construction and Building Materials 262 (2020) 119986

Fig. 9. Variation of probability cumulative curves of shape indexes with the number of meshes.

Fig. 10. The variation of value of shape index and calculation time with the number of meshes.
 L. Zhao et al. / Construction and Building Materials 262 (2020) 119986 9

Fig. 11. The probability distributions of shape indexes.

4.1. Aggregate model preparation with specific shapes
To study the effect of the EI and FI on its packing properties, it is
necessary to prepare rock aggregates with a specific EI and FI. Gen-
erally, particles with specific shape indexes are screened directly.
Although this method is simple and convenient, it is not easy to
control the screening results. To screen out particles with an FI of
0.5, a range [0.5  t, 0.5 + t] is usually selected in practice because
there are few particles whose FI is exactly 0.5. If the value of t is too
large, the distribution range of FI is problematically wide, which
will increase the error of subsequent calculation; if the value of t
is too small, the number of particles in the range of [0.5  t,
0.5 + t] will be minimal, which will lead to the particle used for
simulation having more repetition and poor randomness. Based
on this, a ‘‘rotation-scaling” method is proposed, which can accu-
rately prepare particles with a specific shape index without losing
randomness. First, the particle (Fig. 12a) is rotated around the cen-
troid (the centroid of the particle has been moved to the coordinate
origin) until the OBB of the particle is parallel to the coordinate
plane, which means the direction of the long side a is parallel to
the x-axis, the direction of the sub-long side b is parallel to the
y-axis, and the direction of the short side c is parallel to the z-
axis. (Fig. 12b). Then, the particles are scaled along the axis to
obtain the particles that meet the requirements of the FI and EI
(Fig. 12c). The specific implementation process is as follows:
4.1.1. Rotation of particles
The rotation of particles around the origin of coordinates can be
understood as each point on a particle rotating at the same angle
around the coordinate system origin. Assuming that point P (x, y,
z) is the coordinate of any point on the particle, point P becomes

Fig. 12. Preparation of particles with specific EI and FI: (a) original particles; (b) rotating particles (c) scaled particles.
10 L. Zhao et al. / Construction and Building Materials 262 (2020) 119986

! b, and c based on MATLAB programming. First, ax, by, and cz grad-

point Q (x’, y’, z’) after particle rotation. As shown in Fig. 13, OP
! ually increase from 0 with step t in the range of [0, p]. (The smaller
and OQ are projected to the xoy plane, the yoz plane, and the
! ! ! the value of t, the more accurate the calculation result is, at the cost
xoz plane, which are recorded as OP1 and OQ 1; OP2 and of substantially increased calculation time. In this study, t = 0.1 is
! ! ! selected.) In each step, ax, by, and cz are substituted into Formula
OQ 2; OP3 and OQ 3, respectively. The rotation in the 3D space can
be understood as a rotation around three coordinate axes. On the (11) as a, b, and c, respectively, to calculate the OBB of the rotating
! particles and determine whether it satisfies the conditions that the
xoy plane, the straight line OP1 is rotated to the straight line
! long side of the OBB is parallel to the x-axis, the sublong side b is
OQ 1 with the coordinate z-axis as the rotation axis. The coordi- parallel to the y-axis, and the short side c is parallel to the z-axis. If
nates of point P1 and point Q1 are (x, y, 0) and (x’, y’, 0) , respec- the OBB satisfies these conditions, a = ax, b = by, and c = cz are out-
tively. Then: put; otherwise, the next step is carried out.
  Note that the process of determining a, b, and c described above
x ¼ OP1 sinða þ uÞy ¼ OP1 cosða þ uÞ is a theoretical calculation method. However, in the process of pro-
  ð7Þ
x0 ¼ OP1 sinðuÞy0 ¼ OP1 cosðuÞ gramming, there is an accuracy problem associated with the value
of step t. No matter how small the value of t is, the rotating parti-
! !
where a is the angle between OP1 and OQ 1 and u is the angle cles cannot exactly meet the conditions of a//x-axis, b//y-axis, c//z-
! axis; some small deviations are inevitable. Therefore, in the pro-
between OQ1 and the y-axis. By simplifying the above formula, it
can be concluded that: cess of programming calculation, the angle hx between a and the
x-axis, hy between b and the y-axis, and hz between c and the z-
x0 ¼ xcosa  ysina axis must be calculated and recorded after each rotation. When
ð8Þ
y0 ¼ xsina þ ycosa h = hx + hy + hz is the minimum value (hmin), the corresponding a,
! ! b, and c are the required rotation angles. The detailed determina-
Then, the coordinate relationship between OP1 and OQ 1 con- tion process of the rotation angles (a, b, and c) is shown in Fig. 14.
forms to Formula (9). Rz(a) is a rotation matrix around the z-axis.
2 3 2 3 2 3 4.1.2. Scaling of particles
x0 x cosa sina 0
6 07 6 7 6 7 The FI and EI of particles can be changed by elongating or short-
4 y 5 ¼ Rz ðaÞ  4 y 5Rz ðaÞ ¼ 4 sina cosa 0 5 ð9Þ ening the long side a and the short side c of particles while keeping
z z 0 0 1 the sub-long side b unchanged (b = b’). First, the FL = c/b, EL = b/a
Similarly, the rotation matrices around the x-axis and y-axis are (Fig. 12b) of the pre-scaling particle and FL’=c’/b’,EL’=b’/a’
deduced as follows: (Fig. 12c) of the particle after scaling are calculated. Because b’=
2 3 2 3 b, the long and short sides after scaling can be calculated as a’=
1 0 0 cosc 0 sinc a  EL/EL’, c’= c  FL’/FL. Then, the scaling coefficients ga = a’/a
6 7 6 7 and gc = c’/c along the x-axis and z-axis can be calculated. Then,
Rx ðbÞ ¼ 4 0 cosb sinb 5Ry ðcÞ ¼ 4 0 1 0 5 ð10Þ
0 sinb cosb sinc 0 cosc multiply the x coordinates of all points of the particle by ga, and
multiply the z coordinates of all points by gc (Formula 12). Particles
! ! with the required FI’ and EI’ can be obtained.
Then, the final expression of OP1 rotated to OQ is as follows:
2 3 2 3 X i ¼ x0i  ga Y i ¼ y0i Z i ¼ z0i  gc i ¼ 1; 2; 3; . . . ; n ð12Þ
x0 x
6 07 6 7
4 5
y ¼ Rz ð aÞ  R x ðbÞ  Ry ðc Þ  4 5
y ð11Þ where (xi’, yi’, zi’) is the coordinate of any point after rotation and (Xi,
z0 z Yi, Zi) is the coordinate of any point after scaling.
Referring to Zingg’s diagram [50], the EI and FI of the rock
Therefore, to rotate the particles from the position in Fig. 12a to aggregates are divided into three classes, namely, prolate, oblate
the position in Fig. 12b, the coordinates of the particles after rota- and scalene. Then, the ‘‘rotation-scaling” method is used to change
tion can be calculated by Formula (11) simply by determining the the FI and EI of the 1000 rock aggregates. A total of 19 groups of
rotation angles a, b, and c of the particles around the three axes. particles with different EI and FI values are obtained, as shown in
This section uses a trial algorithm to determine the values of a, Table 2. There are 1000 particles in each group, and the FI and EI

Fig. 13. A sketch of coordinate rotation in 3D space. Fig. 14. Determination process of rotation angle a, b, c.
 L. Zhao et al. / Construction and Building Materials 262 (2020) 119986 11

Table 2 program written in MATLAB is used to import the initial sample

EI, FI of rock aggregates in 19 groups. into PFC3D (as shown in Fig. 17d).
Number Prolate Oblate Scalene The processes of overlap detection are as follows: as shown in
1 EI = 0.4, FI = 1.0 EI = 1.0, FI = 0.4 EI = 0.4, FI = 0.4 Fig. 18a, a bounding sphere is introduced to determine the global
2 EI = 0.5, FI = 1.0 EL = 1.0, FI = 0.5 EI = 0.5, FI = 0.5 overlap of particles. If the bounding sphere of particle-1 does not
3 EI = 0.6, FI = 1.0 EI = 1.0, FI = 0.6 EI = 0.6, FI = 0.6 overlap with the bounding spheres of other particles, then
4 EI = 0.7, FI = 1.0 EI = 1.0, FI = 0.7 EI = 0.7, FI = 0.7 particle-1 does not overlap with other particles (such as particle-
5 EI = 0.8, FI = 1.0 EI = 1.0, FI = 0.8 EI = 0.8, FI = 0.8
6 EI = 0.9, FI = 1.0 EI = 1.0, FI = 0.9 EI = 0.9, FI = 0.9
4 and particle-5). If the bounding sphere of particle-1 overlaps with
7 EI = 1.0, FI = 1.0 the bounding spheres of other particles, local overlap determina-
tion is needed (such as particle-2 and particle-3). The triangular
facets on the surface of two particles are traversed, and whether
values of all particles in each group are the same. The morphology they overlap is determined (as shown in Fig. 18b). If the triangular
of the same particle in different groups is shown in Fig. 15. The facets do not overlap, the two particles do not overlap (particle-2);
morphology of nine rock aggregates with EI = 1.0 & FI = 0.4 if there is an overlap of the triangular facets, the two particles over-
(Fig. 16a), EI = 1.0 & FI = 1.0 (Fig. 16b), EI = 0.4 & FI = 0.4 lap (particle-3).
(Fig. 16c) and EI = 0.4 & FI = 1.0 (Fig. 16d) are shown in Fig. 16.
4.3. Random packing of rock aggregates

4.2. Generation of nonoverlapped particle samples
Using the MATLAB software package, the preparation of the ini-
tial samples with nonoverlapped rock aggregate is carried out
through a series of computational algorithms. The detailed process
is as follows: first, particles are randomly selected from each group
of rock aggregates with specific EI and FI values (as shown in
Fig. 17a) and then scaled to a certain size and placed in the sample
domain randomly (as shown in Fig. 17b) [51,52]. That is, the FI and
EI values of all the particles in each sample are equal. During each
particle placement process, it is necessary to ensure that the parti-
cles do not overlap with the existing ones, which means that over-
lap detection is needed for each pair of particles. After the sample
reaches the specified porosity, the particles in the sample are filled
with spheres (as shown in Fig. 17c) [53]. Then, an interface
Different sample preparation methods also play an important
role in the random packing of particles. Many different particle
packing methods have been used in the literature, such as dump-
ing, beating, sequential addition, and vibration [13,15,54]. In this
section, two commonly used methods of discrete element simula-
tion are used to simulate the packing of rock aggregates.
(1) Gravity falling method (GFM): The sequential addition
method is applied to simulate the natural depositing of rock
aggregates under a gravitational field. Based on MATLAB,
particles were randomly generated ten times according to
the method described in section 4.2 and imported into
PFC3D; 250 particles were generated each time. The equiva-
lent particle size was evenly distributed between [55 mm,
65 mm]. Particles were added into a cubic container with a

Fig. 15. Morphology of the same rock aggregate in different groups.

12 L. Zhao et al. / Construction and Building Materials 262 (2020) 119986

Fig. 16. Morphology of nine rock aggregates in four groups.

Fig. 17. Generation of initial sample: (a) particle database; (b) initial sample; (c) filling particles with spheres; (d) sample imported into PFC3D.

size of 700 mm (long)*700 mm (wide)*900 mm (high) layer
by layer (250 particles per layer) in PFC3D. The container
consists of five rigid walls, and the top was a free surface.
Each layer of particles was gradually added into the con-
tainer from a generation box 500 mm above the top of the
current sample and densified under the action of gravity.
The size of the generation box was 700 mm (long) *
700 mm (wide) * 300 mm (high), as shown in Fig. 19.
(2) Isotropic compression method (ICM): First, the initial sam-
ple was constructed in MATLAB according to the method
described in section 4.2, that is, 2500 particles were ran-
domly generated in a 1000 mm*1000 mm*1000 mm cubic
container, and then the sample as imported into PFC3D
(Fig. 20a). Then, the six sides of the container were set as
rigid walls, and confining pressure of 100 kPa was applied
(Fig. 20b), such that the sample reached an isotropic stress
state. The system reached an equilibrium state through a
DEM cycle (Fig. 20c), during which energy dissipation was
carried out by periodically setting the velocity of all particles
to zero while the container remained a fixed size. The
detailed method for sample generation is described in [55].
The sample generation process is shown in Fig. 17.
D = 60 mm is the average particle size.
A simple linear model [13] was used to control the contact
mechanism between particles. In the process of simulation, when
the unbalanced force of particles is less than 1  105, the sample
can be considered stable. The dry density of rock aggregate is
determined as 2.74 (g/cm3) by a densitometer. The frictional coef-
ficients of inter-particle and particle–wall were provisionally set to
 L. Zhao et al. / Construction and Building Materials 262 (2020) 119986 13

Fig. 18. Overlapping detection of particles: (a) global overlapping detection; (b) local overlapping detection.

Fig. 19. Gravity falling method for random packing: (a) addition of first layer particles; (b) addition of second layer particles; (c) addition of last layer particles.

Fig. 20. Isotropic compression method for random packing; (a) initial sample; (b) sample compression process; (c) final sample.

0, according to the other researches [56–59]. Based on previous 19 groups of particles with different EI and FI values were sim-
researches [13,60], damping coefficient, particle normal stiffness ulated by GFM and ICM, according to Table 2. Part of the samples
(Kn), particle shear stiffness (Kt), and time step are set to 0.3, generated by GFM and ICM with different EI and FI values are
1  107 (N/m), 7  106 (N/m) and 5  106 (s) respectively. shown in Fig. 21 and Fig. 22, respectively.
14 L. Zhao et al. / Construction and Building Materials 262 (2020) 119986

Fig. 21. Samples with different EI, FI generated by GFM.

4.4. Result and discussion
4.4.1. Packing density
The packing density, which is defined as the ratio of the particle
volume to the total volume of the sample, including voids, is a
basic macroscopic parameter to describe the packing structure
[4,5]. For samples generated with ICM, the volume of the sample
is equal to the volume of the final cubic container; for samples gen-
erated with GFM, the volume of the sample cannot calculate
directly because the top of the samples is an irregular free surface.
Therefore, a cubic measurement box with the same bottom as the
sample’s container is employed to measure the packing density of
samples generated with GFM (Fig. 23), which is also used by Zhao
et al. [13]. It should be noted that the top of the measurement box,
should be lower than the irregular free surface. The particle volume
is the total volume of those particles whose centroids are inside the
measurement box, and the volume of the sample is equal to the
box. To make the result more reliable, 100 measurement boxes
with heights uniformly distributed between [Pzmax100 mm,
Pzmax50 mm] are generated. Pzmax is the maximum value of Z-
 L. Zhao et al. / Construction and Building Materials 262 (2020) 119986 15

Fig. 22. Samples with different EI, FI generated by ICM.

coordinate of all particles’ centroids in the sample. Then, the final
packing density is the average of 100 corresponding packing
densities.
The results for the packing density are shown in Fig. 24. The
density of the samples generated by ICM is greater than that
obtained by GFM. This result is reasonable because under the
action of an external force, the distribution of particles will become
tighter, and the porosity of the sample will be less. In general, the
packing density increases with increasing EI and FI values for par-
ticles with different EI and FI values, which indicates that the pack-
ing compactness of flatter or slender particles is worse. For prolate
particles, the difference in the packing density is between 0.030
and 0.044. For oblate particles, the difference in the packing den-
sity is between 0.026 and 0.049. For scalene particles, the differ-
ence in the packing density is between 0.030 and 0.058.
Compared with samples generated GFM, the regularity of samples
generated with ICM is better. For samples generated with GFM,
there are two unexpected points in Fig. 24a (EI = 0.8, FI = 1) and
Fig. 24b (EI = 0.9, FI = 1), which will be discussed detailed in
section 5.
4.4.2. Coordination number
The coordination number, which is often used to quantitatively
describe the internal structural characteristics of a particle deposit,
is defined as the number of particles in contact with a particle. Oda
and Foundations [3] verified the correlation between the coordina-
tion number and shear strength of granular materials by numerical
experiments. The coordination number can reveal more detailed
structural information inside the particles and has a more direct
impact on the macroscopic properties of the particles than the
16 L. Zhao et al. / Construction and Building Materials 262 (2020) 119986
Fig. 23. The schematic diagram of the measurement box.
packing density. In this study, if there is overlap between particles,
it is considered that the two particles contact each other, which
can also be expressed as the two particles contacting each other
when the normal contact force is non-zero. The mean coordination
number (MCN) of a sample is defined as the average number of
coordination numbers of all particles in the sample.
X
Np
MCN ¼ CNi =NP
i¼1
where CNi is the number of adjacent particles in contact with
particle-i and NP is the total number of particles.
As shown in Fig. 25, the coordination number of samples gener-
ated by ICM is larger than that generated by GFM, with a difference
of approximately 1. Because particles will be arranged more closely
under the action of external forces, each particle can contact more
particles. In addition, the coordination number will decrease as EI
and FI increase, which indicates that more flat or slender particles
can contact more particles during packing. For the samples gener-
ated by the two different methods, the rate of decrease of the MCN
with increasing EI and FI is basically the same.
The probability distribution of the coordination number is a
statistic describing the heterogeneity of granular materials and
can partly reflect the anisotropy of the internal structure of granu-
lar materials. The probability distribution of the coordination num-
ber can be adequately fitted by a Gaussian distribution. As shown
Fig. 24. Effects of EI and FI on the packing density: (a) prolate particles; (b) oblate particles; (c) scalene particles.
in Fig. 26, the peak value of the sample generated by ICM
(Fig. 26a1–c1) corresponds to a larger coordination number, i.e.,
a larger mean coordination number than that generated by GFM
(Fig. 26a2–c2), consistent with the results in Fig. 25. As mentioned
earlier, this is because particles accumulate more tightly under
external forces, and thus the distribution of particles will become
more compact under the action of external forces. Regardless of
the method used to obtain the samples, the probability distribution
of the coordination number moves to the right and down as El and
FI decrease, which means that the mean coordination number
increases and the distribution of the coordination number is more
uniform. This pattern is also consistent with the result in Fig. 25,
indicating that anisotropy increases with decreasing of the EI and
FI [13]. A detailed analysis of fabric anisotropy will be carried out
in section 4.4.3.
4.4.3. Fabric anisotropy
Fabric anisotropy is one of the most important characteristics of
granular materials [2,7,61]. The probability distribution of the par-
ticle coordination number described in section 4.4.2 section shows
the anisotropy of the particles to some extent intuitively. In this
section, the anisotropy of particles will be further studied. The fab-
ric tensor [62] is introduced to quantitatively describe the internal
structure of granular materials and is given by the following
formula:
1 XN
U¼ nk nTk ð14Þ
N k¼1
where nk is the kth first unit fabric vector, and N is the number of all
ð13Þ fabric vectors. The second-order tensor corresponds to a matrix
with three eigenvalues, k1, k2, k3 (k1  k2  k3), and three eigenvec-
tors. The eigenvalues and eigenvectors determine the size and
direction of fabric anisotropy, respectively. Among previous studies
of the size of fabric anisotropy, Barreto et al. [63] considered the
influence of three eigenvalues of the fabric tensor and proposed a
deviatoric eigenvalue kd to determine the anisotropy, as shown
below:
qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
1
kd ¼ pffiffiffi ðk1  k2 Þ2 þ ðk1  k3 Þ2 þ ðk2  k3 Þ2 ð15Þ
2
It should be noted that the greater the deviatoric eigenvalue kd,
the greater the anisotropy of the fabric vector. In this section, three
kinds of typical fabric vectors are studied [64,65], i.e., particle ori-
entation (the orientations of particles are defined along their long
side, e.g., the a-side of OBB in Fig. 12), contact normal and branch
vector (the vector connecting the centroid of two particles in con-
tact). The calculated results are shown in Fig. 27. When EI = FI = 1,
 L. Zhao et al. / Construction and Building Materials 262 (2020) 119986 17

Fig. 25. Effects of EI and FI on the mean coordination number: (a) prolate particles; (b) oblate particles; (c) scalene particles.

Fig. 26. Effects of EI and FI on the probability distribution of coordination number (The curves are fit to Gauss distribution): (a1)–(c1) samples generated by gravity falling
method; (a2)–(c2) samples generated by isotropic compression method.

the particle orientation is undefined, so the anisotropy of orienta-
tion cannot be calculated. The following conclusions can be drawn
from Fig. 27.
(1) The anisotropy of particle orientation decreases with
increasing EI and FI (Fig. 27a1–c1). Meanwhile, the aniso-
tropy of the orientation of the samples generated by ICM is
smaller than that of the samples generated by GFM, which
indicates that the distribution of the particles’ orientation
is more uniform under the action of external forces. It can
also be observed that the rate of variation of anisotropy in
Fig. 27c1 is larger than that in Fig. 27a1–b1, which indicates
that the effects of EI and FI may have a superposition effect.
(2) The anisotropy of normal contact decreases with increasing
EI and FI (Fig. 27a2–c2). The anisotropy of the samples gen-
erated by GFM is greater. The superposition effect of EI and
FI can also be seen in the anisotropy of normal contact.
(3) As shown in Fig. 27a3–c3, the anisotropy of the branch vec-
tors of the samples generated by GFM is greater. Notably, the
anisotropy of the branch vectors of the samples generated by
ICM decreases very slightly with increasing EI and FI, which
indicates that the anisotropy of the branch vectors is insen-
sitive to the EI and FI of the particles. The anisotropy of the
branch vectors of the samples generated by GFM decreases
with increasing EI and FI, and the superposition effect of EI
and FI can also be observed.
4.4.4. Probability distribution function (PDF) of contact forces
The contact force between particles plays a vital role in the force
transfer process of granular materials. Studies have shown that the
contact force network formed between particles is the critical fac-
tor determining the macro-mechanical properties of granular
materials [66]. However, the spatial complexity and inhomogene-
ity of the contact force network make it difficult to directly
18 L. Zhao et al. / Construction and Building Materials 262 (2020) 119986
Fig. 27. Fabric anisotropy of samples: (a1)–(c1) anisotropy of orientation; (a2)–(c2) anisotropy of normal contact; (a3)–(c3) anisotropy of branch vector.
describe qualitatively and quantitatively [67]. In this section, the
probability distribution of the contact force is used to quantify
the distribution characteristics of the contact force from the point
of view of the magnitude of the contact force [67–70].
The mean contact force F is used to normalize the contact force
F. The probability distribution of F=F is shown in Fig. 28. First, the
PDF of the normalized contact force keeps an almost constant dis-
tribution but is not influenced by particle shape (EI and FI). In other
words, the contact force normalized by the mean contact force fol-
lows a distribution that is independent of particle shape (EI and FI).
Second, in the logarithmic-linear coordinate system, PDF(F=F) and
F=F have a significant linear relationship after a short period of a
non-linear relationship. In other words, PDF(F=F) first increases
nonlinearly with the increase in F=F and then decreases equiva-
lently with the decrease in F=F. At the same time, the peak value
of PDF(F=F) appears when F=F 0.1, that is, when the contact force
is 0.1 times the mean value F, for the samples generated by GFM
(Fig. 28a1–c1). This is also reported in the article [13]. For the sam-
ples generated by ICM (Fig. 28a2–c2), the peak value of PDF(F=F)
appears when F=F 1, that is, when the contact force equals the
mean value of F. This is also reported in the article [67–69,71]. In
detail, in samples generated by GFM, contact forces less than 0.1
times F account for approximately 17% of the total number of con-
tact forces and form weak contact force chains in the sample; con-
tact forces at a range of [0.1, 7] times the average F have a
significant proportion of up to 82% and form strong contact force
chains in the sample; the percentage of contact forces greater than
7 times F is less than 1%. For samples generated by ICM, contact
forces less than F in the sample account for approximately 12%
of the total number of contact forces and form weak contact force
chains in the sample; contact forces at a range of [1,5] times the
average F have a significant proportion of up to 87% and form
strong contact force chains in the sample; the proportion of contact
forces greater than 5 times F is less than 1%. For samples generated
by GFM, due to the imposition of insignificant self-weight, many
contacts exhibit relatively small contact forces. By contrast, for
samples generated by ICM, under the action of an external load,
the weak contact forces will increase and the proportion of the
 L. Zhao et al. / Construction and Building Materials 262 (2020) 119986 19

Fig. 28. Probability distribution functions (PDFs) of contact force F normalized by the mean contact force F: (a1)–(c1) samples generated by gravity falling method; (a2)–(c2)
samples generated by isotropic compression method.

weak contact forces will decrease, as reported in the previous liter-

ature [67–69,71].

5. Discussion

As mentioned in Section 4.4.1, there are two undesirable points,

i.e., EI = 0.8 (FI = 1) in Fig. 24a and EI = 0.9 (FI = 1) in Fig. 24b, in the
packing density of samples generated with GFM. Considering the
calculation time, we only carried out one simulation for the sample
with specific EI and FI in this paper, which may lead to random
errors of the calculation results. To investigate this problem, four
more groups of parallel simulations were carried out on the prolate
group of particles (The values of EI and FI are shown in the first col-
umn of Table 2). That means five samples were generated and sim-
ulated for particles with each specific EI (FI = 1). The result of
packing density is shown in Fig. 29.
The result (Fig. 29) shows that the packing densities of samples
increase with the increase of EI (FI = 1) in generally. It should be
noted that the regularity of mean values (red short dashes in Fig. 29. Packing density of five groups of parallel simulations for prolate particles.
Fig. 29) of packing density are positively correlated with EI. When
the value of EI is greater than 0.7, the packing densities of some generated to analysis of the relationship between particle shapes
samples with different EI begin to interleave with each other. This and mechanical behaviors. The problem mentioned above will be
problem could be attribute to two reasons: (1) there are still errors investigated and clarified in detail in our future work, through sep-
in the calculation results of packing density of samples generated arating the influencing factors better and simulating more samples.
with GFM, though we use the calculation result of 100 measure-
ment boxes to reduce errors; (2) the calculation result of packing 6. Conclusion
density may be also influenced by other factors, for the reason that
the shapes of realistic particles are complex. The result in Fig. 29 is Based on photogrammetric technology, digital models of 3D
reasonable, if taking the two reasons into consideration. It should rock aggregates are obtained by building a photographic system.
be noted that our current research on this problem is insufficient. A total of 1000 3D models of rock aggregates are obtained. Then,
This paper mainly focuses on the establishment of the numerical four shape indexes, i.e., elongation index (EI), flatness index (FI),
framework of realistic 3D granular materials, from the 3D recon- roundness (RD), and convexity index (CI), are summarized and
struction of particles to the sample (with specific particle shape) applied to the calculation of 1000 rock aggregates. Subsequently,
20 L. Zhao et al. / Construction and Building Materials 262 (2020) 119986
the shape indexes are stored in correspondence with the contour
information of the rock aggregates. Finally, based on a random
sampling of the rock aggregates, 3D discrete element samples are
generated by GFM and by ICM, and the effects of EI and FI of the
rock aggregates on their packing properties are analyzed. The
results show that the shape (EI, FI) of rock aggregates has a signif-
icant effect on the micro and macro mechanical behaviors of their
deposits.
The main innovations of this paper are as follows:
(1) 3D rock aggregates are reconstructed based on photogram-
metric technology, which is more economical and conve-
nient than other commonly used methods, for example,
laser scanning. Compared with models acquired by laser
scanning, the error of 3D particles acquired by photogram-
metry technology is at the sub-millimeter level, and the
accuracy meets the requirements.
(2) A ‘‘rotation-scaling” method is proposed to obtain the parti-
cles whose EI and FI meet the requirements.
(3) The effects of particle shape and different sample prepara-
tion methods on the micro and macro mechanical properties
of random packing are analyzed in detail by discrete element
simulation. The results provide a foundation for the further
study of the relationship between the micromechanical
properties and the macro mechanical behavior of rock
aggregates.
The main conclusions of the DEM simulation in this paper are as
follows:
(1) The packing density of rock aggregates increases with
increasing EI and FI, and the density of samples generated
by ICM is higher than that by GFM, with a difference of
0.027 to 0.055.
(2) The MCN decreases with increasing EI and FI. The MCN of
samples generated by ICM is more significant than that pro-
duced by GFM, and the difference is approximately 1. In
addition, the probability distribution of the coordination
number moves to the right with increasing EI and FI.
(3) The anisotropy of particle orientation, normal contact and
branch vector decreases with increasing EL and FL. In addi-
tion, the effects of EL and FL on the anisotropy of samples
are superimposed.
(4) In the logarithmic-linear coordinate system, the probability
distribution of the contact force F normalized by the mean
contact force F is almost constant for samples with different
EI and FI, i.e., they increase nonlinearly for a short period and
then decrease linearly. Moreover, this distribution is not
related to the shape (EI, FI) of particles but to the method
of sample preparation (GFM, ICM).
CRediT author statement
Lianheng Zhao: Funding acquisition, Project administration,
and Resources. Shuaihao Zhang: Investigation, Methodology,
Validation, Visualization, and Writing - original draft. Dongliang
Huang: Data curation and Software. Xiang Wang: Supervision
and Writing - review & editing. Yingbin Zhang: Conceptualization
and Formal analysis.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing finan-
cial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared
to influence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgments
This study was financially supported by the National Natural
Science Foundation of China (Nos. 51878668; 51978666), the Guiz-
hou Provincial Department of Transportation Foundation, China
(Nos. 2017-123-033; 2018-123-040), the Innovation-Driven Pro-
ject of Central South University, China (No. 2016CX012) and the
Science and Technology Project Plan for Key Projects of Jiangxi
Transportation Department, China (No. 2019C0011). All financial
supports were greatly appreciated.
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