Smart Geotechnics for Smart Societies – Zhussupbekov, Sarsembayeva & Kaliakin (Eds)

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A DEM study on the degree of mixture of soil particles stirred by

rotation of rods

A. Naqi & R. Kuwano

Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan

M. Otsubo
Public Works Research Institute, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan

H. Nagatani, K. Kawano & W. Liu

Kajima Corporation, Tokyo, Japan

ABSTRACT: This contribution aims to propose a simple method to quantify the degree of
mixture of soil particles stirred by rotation of rods. Discrete element method (DEM) is used to
simulate the stirring process and evaluate the degree of mixture at each rotation based on the
initial positions of particles. To reduce complexity in the mixing process of actual soil, this study
focuses on monodispersed spherical particles where inter-particle cohesion is not considered. The
DEM results reveal spatial variation of the degree of mixture (dm) in the given volume; however,
its mean (dm ) increases with the rotation number of stirring rods. Besides, dm depends on the size
of stirring rods whereas the mixing rate is insensitive to dm for the non-cohesive sandy particles.

1 INTRODUCTION

Geotechnical engineering deals with mixing of soil, e.g. deep soil mixing (DSM) and tunnel
boring machines, i.e. earth pressure balance (EPB) shields. It is important to evaluate the extent
of mixing to confirm the required performance of such phenomenon. The extent of soil mixing in
DSM is usually estimated by measuring the permeability or unconfined compression strength of
the material at different curing periods (Bruce et al. 2013). Another index to assess the quality of
mixing is blade rotation number (Yoshizawa et al. 1996). Moreover, mixing phenomena have
been studied in fields other than civil engineering (Khosropour et al. 2000; Bothe 2010). This
study aims to define a parameter for calculating the degree of mixture of soils mixed by the rotary
action of two stirring rods in a cylindrical soil specimen using discrete element method (DEM).

2 MATERIAL

The DEM simulations were performed using a modified version of LAMMPS (Plimpton
1995) and the model test simulation broadly follows Ali et al. (2020). Spherical particles were
used (Young’s modulus = 71.6 GPa; Poisson’s ratio = 0.23, particle density = 2650 kg/m3;
diameters = 2 to 2.2 mm). The simplified Hertz-Mindlin contact model was used with an
inter-particle friction coefficient of 0.05. The wall-particle friction was set to zero.

3 SAMPLE PREPARATION

Table 1 shows the four test cases conducted in this study. Referring to Figure 1, the generated
particles were pluviated inside a rigid box from a height exceeding 100 cm. A cylindrical region
with rigid walls (diameter = 30 cm, thickness = 2 cm) was created inside the box and extra particles

DOI: 10.1201/9781003299127-83

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 Table 1. Test cases and specifications.
Mixing rate Diameter of stirring rod (φ)

Case RPM cm Number of particles

1 20 3 165,919
2 100 3 165,919
3 500 3 165,919
4 100 1 169,398

were removed around this region. After this, two rigid stirring rods having their diameters (φ) of 1
or 3 cm (Table 1) and thickness = 2 cm were provided by deleting the particles in the two given
regions. The material was mixed by rotating these rods at 20, 100 or 500 RPM (Table 1).

Figure 1. Simulation steps. Figure 2. Grid system (not on scale).

4 DEFINITION OF DEGREE OF MIXTURE

4.1 Local degree of mixture

For the calculation of local degree of mixture (dm), the particles in the ground were divided into
the two regions (type 1 and type 2) based on their initial coordinate as shown by two different
colors in Figure 2. The ground was divided into one hundred equal-sized grids (10×10) over the
specimen. For each grid, the dm value was defined based on the difference in the numbers of
type 1 and type 2 particles as follows.

where n1 and n2 are the numbers of type 1 and type 2 particles, respectively. Equation 1 implies
that dm becomes the highest (i.e. 100%) when n1 = n2 for each grid. If there are no particles in any
grid, that grid was omitted from the calculations.
Figure 3 illustrates a snapshot of the ground after 25 rotations along with the variation of
dm where the color bar corresponds to the magnitude of dm. Figure 4a provides an example
(Case 2) for the variation of dm for grid number 72 (Figure 2) with the rotation number.

4.2 Mean degree of mixture (dm )

In this study, the rods are given twenty-five rotations. For each rotation, the mean degree of
mixture (dm ) is defined by calculating the mean of dm of all the grids, that contain non-zero
particles, at the given rotation number using the following equation.

The evolution of dm with the rotation number for Case 2 is given in Figure 4b.

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Figure 3. Mixed condition and spatial distribution of dm at 25 rotations with φ = 3 cm (Case 2).

Figure 4. Evolution of degree of mixture with the rotation number (Case 2) (a) Numbers of two types of
particles and dm for grid number 72 (b) Mean degree of mixture (dm ) of all the grids.

5 DISCUSSIONS

5.1 Effect of the mixing rate of stirring rods

Figure 5 compares the mixing conditions after 25 rotations with different mixing rates. It is not
easy to differentiate the degree of mixture by eyes. Figure 6 compares the evolution of dm with
the rotation number. The mixing rate appears less sensitive to dm where there is no clear depend­
ency of the mixing rate in the given results. It is noteworthy that the current simulation study
focuses on coarse particles and does not consider the effect of viscosity or cohesion which can
be an influential factor for the mixing phenomenon of finer particles like plastic silt or clay.

5.2 Effect of the size of stirring rods

Figure 6 also shows the effect of rod diameter (φ) on dm . The larger rods (i.e. φ = 3 cm) are more
effective to achieve higher dm for a given rotation number at the same rate of rotation. Figure 5
indicates some locally concentrated zones for the two different colors in Case 4 (φ = 1 cm), prob­
ably due to the less influenced zone generated by the motion of smaller rods during rotation.

Figure 5. Effects of mixing rate and size of stirring rods on the mixing condition after 25 rotations.

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Figure 6. Evolution of the mean degree of mixture (dm ) with the rotation number for all test cases.

6 CONCLUSIONS

This contribution proposed a simple method to quantify the degree of mixture of soil particles
stirred by rotation of rods. Based on a series of DEM simulations using monodispersed coarse
spherical particles, the following conclusions can be drawn:
- A new parameter for the calculation of degree of mixture (dm) has been defined. The
results show that the parameter performs well for each grid at given number of rotations.
- The mean degree of mixture (dm ) increases with the rotation number up to 25.
- Mixing rate is less sensitive to the degree of mixture for non-cohesive sandy particles.
- Larger diameter of stirring rods tends to mix the material well as compared to smaller
rods in this study since the smaller rods generate locally concentrated zones.
This study is eventually aimed at enhancing the in-situ mixing and monitoring techniques.
Therefore, additional DEM simulations using more realistic material properties are being exam­
ined. Besides, some model tests are being performed to validate the results of DEM simulations.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This research was conducted using the Fujitsu PRIMERGY CX400M1/CX2550M5 (Oak­
bridge-CX) at the Information Technology Center, The University of Tokyo.

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