The 12 International Conference of International Association for Computer Methods and Advances in Geomechanics (IACMAG) 1-6 October, 2008

Goa, India

th

A Comparison between Angle of Repose and Friction Angle of Sand

M. Ghazavi
Dept. of Civil Engineering, K N Toosi University of Technology, Tehran, Iran

M. Hosseini
Dept. of Civil Engineering, K N Toosi University of Technology, Tehran, Iran

M. Mollanouri
Dept. of Civil Engineering, K N Toosi University of Technology, Tehran, Iran Keywords: Laboratory experiment, sand, angle of repose, friction angle, direct shear test. ABSTRACT: It may be said that the shape of sand deposition is normally cone and sand grains are oriented a certain angle of deposition repose is made. This angle is such that no stability occurs. Thus the angle of repose is somewhat correlated to the sand internal friction angle. This paper presents the results of a series of laboratory experiments performed three types of sand. For this purpose, a special device has been prepared. The device is well equipped and makes it possible to pour sand from various heights. After pouring sand from a certain height, the angle of repose is measured using the geometry of sand deposition. Direct shear tests are also carried out on the sand at the same compaction to determine the friction angle. These two angles are then correlated. The results show that the angle of repose can be correlated to the internal friction of the sand. An empirical expression is presented to correlate these two, enabling users to estimate the friction angle of the sand in the field.

1 Introduction
It is normally seen that when a soil stockpile is poured in a site, it is formed like a cone shape. The angel between the soil cone and the horizontal direction obviously depends on the soil parameters such as the internal friction angle, grain size distribution, grain shape, unit weight, moisture content, stratification, segregation, etc. The repose angle is also affected by the method and procedure of pouring including he height of soil pouring, and static or dynamic pouring. In fact, the angle of repose is one of the most important macroscopic parameters in characterising the behaviour of granular materials, and is therefore a research focus for years. It has been found that the angle of repose strongly depends on material properties such as sliding and rolling frictions (Lee and Herrmann, 1993; Hill and Kakalios, 1995; Zhou et al., 1999) and density of particles (Burkalow, 1945), and particle characteristics such as size [8,13] and shape (Burkalow, 1945; Carrigy, 1970), in addition to the method of formating a sandpile to form a sandpile (Grasselli and Herrmann, 1997; Kalman, et al., 1993). It is generally reported that the angle of repose increases with increasing sliding and rolling friction coefficients and deviation from spheres, and decreases with increasing particle size. In this paper, an apparatus has been made to determine the angel of repose, due to sandy soil pouring from various heights. In parallel, direct shear tests have been performed to determine the internal friction angel of the sand. These angles are then compared and results will be presented.

Test apparatus description

A special apparatus was made from metal as shown in Figure 1. This apparatus consists of four thread rods around to make a tank having dimensions of 70 70 cm in plan. A steel metal flat plate was used as the botton of the container to make a horizontal surface. Some rods were used for main frame members. A number of steel bars were also used as belts around the framr for stability of the vertical bars. Horizontal and vertical bars were welded together. The vertical rods were threaded to facilitate a variation of the height of sand pouring in the tank. A separate storage was used to feed the sand into the tank. This storage had a diameter and a height of 16 cm and 35 cm, respectively. It had a gate at the bottom that can be opened or closed to control the sand pouring. The gate also controls the speed and amount of sand discharge. The diameter of the outfall at the bottom is was 1 cm. the apparatus has also a rotor rod in one of the side rods for measuring the height of the deposited poured sand in the container.

1272

Figure 1. Apparatus for determining sand repose angle

3 Testing material
Three types of relatively uniform rounded fine sand were used in the present experimental research. The grain size distribution was obtained for each sand type using the procedure described in ASTM. Figure 2 shows the grain size distribution of the tested material.
100 90 80 Passing (%) 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 0.01 0.1 1 10

Sand 1

Sand 2, 3

Grain Size (m m )

Figure 2. Grain size distribution for three types of sand

4 Test procedure
There are several steps in which tests are performed. These are as follow: a) At first step, the soil is poured slowly in the feeding storage while its outflow gate is closed. This is done to fill the storage such that a 10 cm of the top of storage remains empty (Figure 3). This precedure is the same for all tsts. b) The storage is placed in its right position at the center of the apparatus. The storage gate outflow is opened and the soil is poured down at the center of the circle of the metal plate sticked to the storage bottom, as seen in Figure 3. Three values of 15, 25, and 35 cm for the sand pouring heights were used to determine the height of sand pouring effects. c) When the sand pouring is terminated and the sand cone is formed, the height of the soil cone is measured using the rotor rod in one of the side rods (Figure 4). d) To lessen inaccuracy in the results, eigth points of the soil cone laid on the metal plate at the tank bottom are considered and signed. The height of the cone is also determined and thus the angle of repose of the sand cone is computed. The deposited sand is collected and eight values for the diameter of the sand cone are recorded from the signed points (Figure 4). e) Having the height and eight radius points of the sand cone, eight values for the angle of repose are determined and the average value for the repose angle is obtained.

1273

Figure 3. Sand feeding storage f) As mentioned earlier, direct shear tests were performed to obtain the sand internal friction angle using the same soil density as releases from the storage outflow. To have the same soil density in the shear test apparatus box, the test mold was fixed in the middle of the height of sand pouring height for each test. By opening the storage gate, the mold will be filled with sand. Small shear test apparatus was used. Three normall stresses of 18, 36, and 54 kPa were used for direct shear tests. The shearing speed of 1 mm/min was kept the same for all tests. The shear stress was then applied on the sample until the failure stage is reached. The above procedure is repeated for all types of sand and soil release heights.

Figure 4. Sand pouring procedure from feeding storage into container

5 Test results
As mentioned earlier, direct shear tests were performed to obtain the sand internal friction angle using the same soil density as releases from the storage outflow. Figure 4 compares the repose angle and internal friction angle. = 0.36 + 21.2 (1)

where and are the angle of repose and internal friction angle in degrees, respectively. This expression shows that when the sand is deposited in a loose state, the friction angle is almost smaller that the repose angle. However, the compaction density of the deposited samd increases, the friction angle is greater than the repose angle.

1274

40

38

= 0.3558 + 21.205 2 R = 0.9604

Angle of Repose (deg)

36

34

32

30 30 32 34 36 38 40

Internal Friction Angle (deg)

Figure 5. Comparison between repose angle and internal friction angle It is noted that empirical Equation (1) is valid for the material and test procedure used in this research. Obviously more experiments with various granular materials are required to generalise this expression.

6 Conclusions
A special device has been made to measure the angle of repose of deposited sand. The sand has been poured from a certain height through a narrow gate outflow. The geomtry of the deposited sand was recorded. The internal friction angle of the deposited sand at the same compaction density was also measured using small direct shear test apparatus. The results show that the repose and internal friction angles may be correlatred with a linear expression which is valid within the tested materials and the procedure outlined in this paper. It is recommended to perform more experiments to validate the finding in this research.

7 References
Barla G., Barla M., Repetto L. 1999. Continuum and discontinuum modelling for design analysis of tunnels. Proc. 9 Int. Conf. on Rock Mech., Paris (France), 163-168. Bieniawski Z.T. 1989. Engineering Rock Mass Classification, Wiley, New York (USA). Burkalow, A. 1945. Angle of repose and angle of sliding friction: an experimental study, Bulletin of The Geological Society of America 56, 669. Carstensen, J. and Chan, P. 1976. Relation between particle size and repose angles of powder, Powder Technology 15, 129. Carrigy, M. 1970. Experiments on the angles of repose of granular materials, Sedimentology 14, 147. Grasselli, Y., Herrmann, H.J. 1997. On the angles of dry granular heaps, Physica A 246, 301. Hoek E., Kaiser P.K., Bawden W.F. 1995. Support of Underground Excavations in Hard Rock, Balkema, Rotterdam (The Netherlands). Hill, K.M. and Kakalios, J. 1995. Reversible axial segregation of rotating granular media, Physical Review A: Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics, Vol. 52, 4393. Kalman, H., Goder, D.,Rivken, M., and Ben-Dor, G. 1993. The effect of the particlesurface friction coefficient on the angle of repose, Bulk Solids Handling 13, 123. Lee, J., and Herrmann, H.J. 1993. Angle of repose and angle of marginal stability: molecular dynamics of granular particles, Journal of Physics, 26, 373. Okubo S., Fukui K., Chen W. 2003. Export system for applicability of tunnel boring machines in Japan, Rock Mechanics and Rock Engineering, 36(4), 305-322. Zhou, Y.C., Wright, B.D., Yang, R.Y., Xu, B.H., and Yu, A.B. 1999. Rolling friction in the dynamic simulation of sandpile formation, Physica A 269, 536. Zhou, Y.C. Xu, B.H., Yu, A.B., and Zulli, P. 2002. An experimental and numerical study of the angle of repose of coarse spheres. Powder Technology 125, 4554.
th

1275