Quantifying fabric anisotropy of granular materials using wave velocity anisotropy: a numerical investigation

Fabric anisotropy is a sought-after micro index to correlate macro mechanical responses of granular materials. In this work, the discrete-element method is utilised to simulate multi-directional bender element tests in granular soils to obtain the evolution of wave velocities during drained conventional triaxial (CT) and true triaxial (TT) tests; the contact normal-based fabric is simultaneously monitored for bridging the fabric anisotropy and wave velocity anisotropy. The results show that stress-normalised wave velocities and microscopic fabric, including contact normal distribution and coordination number, remain nearly constant until a stress ratio threshold is reached. After the threshold value is reached, stress-normalised wave velocities start to decrease, especially in the minor principal stress direction, accompanied by significant adjustment of coordination number and fabric anisotropy. The results also reveal that the normalised wave velocity depends on the contact normal densities in the wave propagation and particle oscillation directions. With the contact normal distribution represented by a density function, a good linear relationship between the microscopic fabric anisotropy and macroscopic wave velocity anisotropy is obtained for both CT and TT tests.