Bridging molecular, particulate, and continuum mechanics for geomechanics application

This paper aims at bridging molecular mechanics, particulate mechanics and continuum mechanics in order to solve a macro level geotechnical problem. Due to the paramount amount of variations in conditions of each length scale, a simplified condition - the dry spherical shape quartz sand is simulated. This paper adapted a so-called "hierarchical" approach to bridge different length scales, which starts from the molecular level and propagates up to the macro level. Molecular mechanics approach is used to obtain crystal properties, particulate mechanics approach is used to obtain assemblage properties of sand particles, and continuum mechanics approach is used to obtain macro scale behavior. MS-Studio software is used for molecular mechanics simulation, OVAL software is used for particulate mechanics simulation, and a simple slope stability example is solved using continuum mechanics. From this study, it turned out that the slope stability analysis of dry sands may be performed not only with experimental data but also with parameters obtained from a lower level length scale mechanics. Copyright ASCE 2007.