Granular Matter 5, 115120

c Springer-Verlag 2003
Creep of granular materials
G.R. McDowell, J.J. Khan
Abstract This paper examines the creep of brittle gran-
ular materials subjected to one-dimensional compression.
One-dimensional creep tests were performed on aggregates
of brittle pasta and compared with the behaviour of sand
at much higher stress levels. It was found that for both
materials, creep strain is proportional to the logarithm of
time. One possible mechanism for creep is particle crush-
ing. However, it is usually difcult to measure changes
in the particle size distribution during creep because the
nes produced are so small, and the mass of nes is too
small to measure accurately unless creep is permitted for a
very long time. However, for pasta, the particle fragments
produced are large, and it is found that particle crushing
does occur during creep for 24 hours. This is consistent
with the proposition that the behaviour of all brittle gran-
ular materials is essentially the same. A micro mechanical
argument is then summarised which predicts that creep
strain should be proportional to log time.
Keywords Creep, Fracture, Micro mechanics
1 with a duration of only 24 hours. Finally, a micro mechan-
Introduction
It is well known that granular materials creep under con-
stant eective stress [1, 2] such that creep strain is propor-
tional to log time:
= C log t/to (1)
where to is the time from which creep strains are mea-
sured. This result is well published in standard soil
mechanics texts [3, 4], and is widely accepted to apply to
soils. Murayama et. al. [5] proposed a rheological model
for creep of sand, and Kuhn and Mitchell [6] used rate pro-
cess theory to show that viscous and frictional interpar-
ticle sliding could give rise to the sort of creep behaviour
observed in soils. However, the authors have not found
any previously published micro mechanical explanation
for creep which is consistent with (1). Furthermore, there
is evidence [1, 2] to show that creep of granular materials is
accompanied by particle crushing. McDowell and Bolton
[7] showed that the evolution of linear normal compression
lines in voids ratio: log stress space for a soil subjected to
Received: 7 July 2003
G.R. McDowell (&), J.J. Khan
School of Civil Engineering,
University of Nottingham, NG7 2RD, UK
DOI 10.1007/s10035-003-0142-x
one-dimensional compression, is consistent with the con-
tinuous fracture of the smallest particles as the stress
increases. The evidence for crushing of granular materi-
als during creep is limited, as the nes produced have a
very small mass which is often difcult to measure unless
creep is permitted for a very long time; Leung et. al [1], for
example, were able to measure changes in the particle size
distribution of a silica sand subjected to one-dimensional
creep for 5 days. In addition, it is not known whether sand
creeps in some special way which differs from that of other
brittle granular materials. McDowell and Humphreys [8]
examined one-dimensional monotonic compression tests
on cornakes, rice krispies, pasta and sand, and showed
that the behaviour of these granular materials was essen-
tially the same, albeit at different stress levels. This paper
follows on from that work, and aims to demonstrate that
brittle granular materials creep in the same way. Pasta
particles shatter into large fragments under stress, mak-
ing it easy to measure changes in the particle size distri-
bution during creep. Because the pasta (conchiglie) shells
each contain a large internal void, this leads to significant
strains during creep. This makes it simple to relate creep
strain for pasta to particle fracture during a creep test
ical explanation for creep is summarised, which predicts
that creep strain should be proportional to the logarithm
of time.
2
One-dimensional normal compression tests
In order to compare with data for silica sand at high pres-
sures (in excess of 10 MPa), it was necessary to nd a suit-
able brittle granular material which undergoes significant
degradation at much lower stresses. For this purpose pasta
was used. Pasta was used by McDowell and Humphreys [8]
to study the eect of particle strength on the yield stress of
aggregates subjected to one-dimensional compression. The
oedometer used for the pasta in the work reported in this
paper was that described by McDowell and Humphreys
[8], having an internal diameter of approximately 150mm.
This enabled the sample to be kept reasonably thin (about
one third to one half of the sample diameter) so as to
reduce wall friction, whilst still maintaining a sample
thickness of at least 6 particles. A Zwick testing machine
with a capacity of 200kN was used. A much smaller
oedometer of internal diameter approximately 80.5mm
was used for the one-dimensional compression of sand
in an Instron machine with a capacity of 2.5MN. The
116
Fig. 1. One-dimensional compression plots for pasta and sand
pasta particles were conchiglie shells of size approximately
15mm. The sand tested was 1.18-2mm Leighton Buzzard
sand. Each uniformly graded sample was compacted by
vibration before testing.
Figure 1 shows compression plots in terms of voids
ratio (dened as volume of voids per unit volume of sol-
ids) versus the logarithm of stress for each of the materials
tested, before any creep tests were conducted. The voids
ratio e was calculated according to the equation
V To ascertain whether particle breakage was actually occur-
e= 1 (2)
Ms /s
where V is the sample volume, Ms is the mass of solid par-
ticles, and s is the density of the particles calculated by
measuring the volume of water displaced by a known mass
of particles. The tests on sand were performed under load
control, with axial stress increasing at 98kPa/s to maxi-
mum stresses of 40MPa and 100MPa. The tests on pasta
were performed under displacement control at 20mm/min
to maximum stresses of 400kPa and 1MPa. The stresses
in the legend of Figure 1 refer to the maximum stress in
each test. The gure shows that the normal (i.e. plastic)
compression plots for each material are of the same form.
Because the applied stress was found to rise and then fall
as the pasta particles broke, there is some scatter in the
data. The yield stress at the point of maximum curvature
for each material was shown by McDowell and Humph-
reys [8] to be proportional to the average strength of the
constituent particles.
3 ing creep at 400kPa is shown in Figure 5, and it is
One-dimensional creep tests
Following the one-dimensional normal compression tests,
creep tests were performed on each material to measure
the deformation under constant stress. The creep defor-
mation of the pasta is shown in Figures 2a,b at 400kPa
and 1MPa respectively, and is seen to be proportional
to log time in each case. The creep of the sand at 40
MPa and 100 MPa is shown in Figures 3a,b respec-
tively.
It can be seen that for both materials, creep is pro-
portional to the logarithm of time. For pasta, the slope of
each plot of strain against log time, known as the creep
coefcient, is greater than that for sand. This is because of
the large strains which occur when pasta particles break
and internal voids become external voids: i.e. there is cat-
astrophic void collapse. It was difcult to measure the
change in particle size distribution of the sand during
creep, because of the small mass of ne particles involved.
ring for the pasta, the particles were sieved in a standard
sieve shaker after normal compression to 1MPa followed
by unloading (i.e. without creep) in two separate tests (to
check repeatability) and then after normal compression
followed by creep and then unloading in a third test. The
results are shown in Figure 4, which gives cumulative mass
distributions determined by summing the mass of parti-
cles passing any given sieve size as a percentage of the
total mass of the sample. The results demonstrate that
creep is accompanied by particle crushing.
The creep coefcient for pasta in Figure 2 is higher
at 400kPa than at 1MPa: this ought to be consistent
with a greater amount of crushing. One might expect
the creep coefcient to increase with stress level (as for
the sand in Figures 3a,b), but it can be seen in Fig-
ure 1 that the compressibility of the pasta is higher
at 400kPa than at 1MPa: the rate of crushing with
increasing stress is bound to reduce as the voids ratio
tends to zero and the smallest particles become so small
that they are strong enough to no longer fracture. The
change in the particle size distribution for pasta dur-
evident that the change in particle size distribution dur-
ing creep is indeed more significant at 400kPa than at
1MPa.
4
A micro mechanical explanation for creep
McDowell [9] has proposed a micro mechanical expla-
nation for the observation that creep strain is pro-

Fig. 2. Creep of pasta
portional to log time, based on the proposition by
McDowell and Bolton [7] that the evolution of lin-
ear normal compression lines in voids ratio : log
stress space for a soil subjected to one-dimen-
sional compression, is consistent with the continu-
ous fracture of the smallest particles as the stress
increases. McDowell and Bolton [7] showed that
the existence of a linear normal compression line
with equation
e = ec ln (/c ) (3) c = ks
could be explained by an energy equation which ac-
counts for dissipation by particle fracture and frictional
sliding, and the generation of a fractal distribution of
particles such that the smallest particles continue to
fracture under increasing stress, becoming statistically
stronger and lling voids. McDowell [9] then extended
the micro mechanical analysis to account for creep and
showed that (3) is consistent with (1) for a granu-
lar material subjected to creep at constant stress un-
der one-dimensional conditions, if the time dependence of
117
particle strength is accounted for. The work is summarised
here.
Equation (3) has been written in a dimensionally con-
sistent manner. The stress c is simply a stress on the
normal compression line, and voids ratio ec is the voids
ratio at that applied stress. According to (3), an aggre-
gate should be in equilibrium with a voids ratio ec under
an applied stress c , where c is proportional to the aver-
age strength of the current smallest particles s , so that:
(4)
The constant k is independent of particle size, because as
the smallest particle size reduces, the smallest particles
are in self-similar geometrical congurations, according to
the micro mechanical argument proposed by McDowell
and Bolton [7]. Further compression can only occur if the
stress level increases above c or if the average strength of
the smallest particles s decreases. It is the fracture of the
smallest particles which gives the reduction in voids ratio,
because even once a wide distribution of particle sizes has
formed, if some large particles break, there are no available
118

Fig. 3. Creep of sand

Fig. 4. Particle size distributions for pasta before and after

creep at 1MPa
 119

Fig. 5. Particle size distributions for pasta before and after

creep at 400kPa

voids for the large fragments to ll. Substituting equation so that the log time eect is observed. Taking an initial
(4) into equation (3) gives: voids eo of 0.5, say for a sand, at the onset of creep, the
creep coefcient in (1) given as
e = ec ln (/ks ) (5)
2.3 1
C= (10)
The purpose for writing equation (5) in this way, is to n 1 + eo
examine the eect of time-dependent particle strength. It
is well established in the materials literature [10, 11], that ranges typically from about 0.0015 (taking = 0.1,
ceramics exhibit time-dependent strength. This is caused n = 100) to 0.03 (taking = 0.2, n = 10). Most of the val-
by slow crack growth as moisture in the environment inter- ues of creep coefcients published by Leung et. al. [1] for
acts with aws in the material. The end result is that for one-dimensional compression of sand at high stress levels
a tensile test on a ceramic specimen, if the standard test fall within this range. Whilst pasta cannot be viewed as
used to measure the tensile strength T S takes a time tT S , a ceramic, nevertheless the log time relationship has been
then the stress which the sample will support safely for a shown to be consistent with a micro mechanical hypothe-
time t is given by the equation: sis which says that linear normal compression lines emerge

n as a result of the continuous fracture of the smallest par-
tT S ticles as stress increases, and that creep at constant stress
= (6) results from the reduction in strength of the smallest par-
T S t
ticles with time according to the literature on strength
where n is the slow-crack growth exponent. Data for n is of ceramics. Thus the explanation of creep based on
very limited, but n is 10-20 for oxides at room tempera- the slow reduction of particle strength with time seems
ture; for carbides and nitrides, n can be as large as 100 plausible.
[10]. It is now possible to examine the eect of the depen-
dence of s on time at constant stress level in (5). If so
is the average particle strength which could be measured 5
at time t = to , then the average strength s after a time Conclusions
t, according to (6) would be: It has been shown that the creep behaviour of sand and
1/n
pasta are very similar: there is nothing special about
s = so (to /t) (7) soil. By using pasta, it is possible to measure significant
creep strains and particle breakage. It appears that creep
Substituting (7) into (5) gives: is accompanied by particle breakage and that creep strain
is proportional to log time. It also appears that the higher

e = ec ln (/kso ) ln (t/to ) (8) the degree of particle crushing, the higher the creep coef-
n cient. A micro mechanical explanation for creep has been
Hence the reduction in voids ratio
e as a function of time summarised, which shows that the reduction of particle
after time to is simply: strength with time, according to literature on strength of
ceramics, leads to creep which is proportional to log time,
2.3 if a linear normal compression line exists on a plot of voids

e = ln (t/to ) = log10 (t/to ) (9)
n n ratio against the logarithm of eective stress.
120
References
1. C. F. Leung, F. H. Lee & N. S. Yet, Can. Geotech. J. 33
(1996), p. 888
2. P. V. Lade & C-T. Liu, J. Eng. Mechs. ASCE 124(8)
(1998), p. 912
3. J. H. Atkinson, An introduction to the mechanics of soils
and foundations. London: McGraw-Hill (1993)
4. W. Powrie, Soil mechanics: concepts and applications.
London E & FN Spon (1997)
5. S. Murayama, K. Michihiro & T. Sakagami, Soils Found.
24(2) (1984), p. 1
6. M. R. Kuhn, & J. K. Mitchell, J. Geotech. Engng. ASCE
119(3) (1993), p. 507
7. G. R. McDowell & M. D. Bolton, Geotechnique 48(5)
(1998), p. 667
8. G. R. McDowell & A. Humphreys, Granular Matter 4(1)
(2002), p. 1
9. G. R. McDowell, Geotechnique (in press)
10. M. F. Ashby & D. R. H. Jones, Engineering materials 2.
Oxford: Pergamon Press (1986)
11. R. W. Davidge, Mechanical behaviour of ceramics.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (1979)
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