Computers and Geotechnics xxx (2017) xxx–xxx

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Computers and Geotechnics

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/compgeo

Research Paper

Micro-mechanical analysis of geomembrane-sand interactions using

DEM
Shi-Jin Feng a,⇑, Xin Liu a, Hong-Xin Chen a, T. Zhao b
a
Key Laboratory of Geotechnical and Underground Engineering of the Ministry of Education, Department of Geotechnical Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, China
b
State Key Laboratory of Hydraulics and Mountain River Engineering, College of Water Resource and Hydropower, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610065, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Three-dimensional simulations of interface direct shear test between geomembrane and sand are con-
Received 28 December 2016 ducted using DEM in this study. An overlapping technique is established to reasonably simulate the
Received in revised form 11 July 2017 roughness of geomembrane surface. The simulation results agree reasonably well with the published
Accepted 24 August 2017
experimental results, such as stress-strain relationship, interface shear strength, thickness of shear band.
Available online xxxx
The method is a practical tool to investigate the micro-mechanical interactions between geomembrane
and sand, including particle displacement, void ratio and stress state, number of interparticle contacts,
Keywords:
and distribution, magnitude and orientation of contact force during the shearing process.
Surface roughness
DEM
Ó 2017 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Interface direct shear test
Numerical simulation
Triaxial test

1. Introduction behavior. Ling et al. [10] examined the effect of roughness of

Geomembranes are widely used as barriers in landfills and
other geotechnical structures, since they are quite effective in min-
imizing flow of liquids and vapors [1–3]. Due to different proper-
ties of geomembrane and soil, stress and deformation at the
geomembrane-soil interface are highly complicated, and the inter-
face may become weak plane where failure occurs [4–7]. There-
fore, it is very important to investigate the interactions between
geomembrane and soil, which is helpful for a better understanding
of the failure mechanism and rational design of the liner system.
Interface direct shear tests were extensively conducted to char-
acterize the shear resistance at geomembrane-soil interface and to
investigate the interactions between geomembrane and soil. For
example, Fishman and Pal [8] reported some test results of inter-
face shear strength between geomembranes and cohesive soils,
and conducted a comprehensive review of the influence factors
and their effects on the measured interface shear strength. Dove
et al. [9] conducted a series of interface direct shear tests using
Ottawa 20/30 sand and smooth HDPE geomembrane, and the
results showed that normal stress, particle shape and material
roughness determine which shear mechanism governs the shear
⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: fsjgly@tongji.edu.cn (S.-J. Feng), 1431935@tongji.edu.cn
(X. Liu), chenhongxin@tongji.edu.cn (H.-X. Chen), zhaotao@scu.edu.cn (T. Zhao).
geomembrane surface by testing the shear behavior of PVC
geomembrane-cohesive soil interface. The results indicated that
textured geomembrane-soil interface shows higher peak shear
strength compared with smooth geomembrane-soil interface,
while the residual shear strengths are very similar. DeJong and
Westgate [11] investigated the effect of over-consolidation ratio
(OCR) on the interface shear behavior between smooth HDPE
geomembrane and soil, and the results revealed that the peak fric-
tion coefficient substantially increases with OCR, while the influ-
ence of OCR on the residual friction coefficient is negligible. Frost
et al. [12] found that plowing on smooth geomembrane can be
directly related to angularity of sand particles and normal stress.
Angular sand particles are capable of generating deeper grooves
on the surface of smooth geomembrane and thus offer higher
interface shear strength compared with sub-rounded and rounded
sand particles.
However, due to the limitations of existing test apparatuses and
methods, it is difficult to directly investigate the micro-mechanical
interactions between geomembrane and soil through laboratory
tests. An alternative tool is the discrete element method (DEM)
[13], which has been successfully used to study geosynthetic-soil
interactions. For example, Lai et al. [14] examined the soil-
arching effect within geogrid-reinforced pile-supported embank-
ments; Wang et al. [15] investigated the load transfer behavior
between geogrid and sand; Ngo et al. [16] studied the interface

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compgeo.2017.08.019
0266-352X/Ó 2017 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Please cite this article in press as: Feng S-J et al. Micro-mechanical analysis of geomembrane-sand interactions using DEM. Comput Geotech (2017), http://
dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compgeo.2017.08.019
2 S.-J. Feng et al. / Computers and Geotechnics xxx (2017) xxx–xxx
Fig. 1. Modeling geomembrane using DEM.
Fig. 2. Model configuration of geomembrane-soil interface direct shear test.
behavior of coal-fouled ballast reinforced by geogrid subjected to
direct shear; Cheng et al. [17] researched the stress states and
fabric anisotropies of soils in geotextile containers. However,
researches in geomembrane-soil interactions were quite limited
since it is difficult to precisely model the roughness of the
geomembrane surface. In the existing researches, geosynthetics
were usually modeled with bonded particles without any overlap
[14–18]. The method is quite effective in simulating the tensile
properties of geosynthetics but the realistic surface characteristics
of the geomembrane cannot be reasonably reflected. Kazempoor
et al. [18] were the pioneers to model geomembrane-soil interac-
tions using DEM. However, probably because of the limited com-
putation capacity, only two-dimensional modeling was
conducted and micro-analysis of particle displacement, and distri-
bution, magnitude and orientation of contact force during the
shearing process was not available.
In this study, geomembrane-sand interface is concerned since it
widely exists and the surface characteristics of geomembrane may
significantly influence the interface shear behavior. In the following
sections, an effective method of reasonably simulating the surface
characteristics of geomembrane is established first. A three-
dimensional interface direct shear model is then developed
using DEM to comprehensively investigate the micro-mechanical
interactions between geomembrane and sand.
Please cite this article in press as: Feng S-J et al. Micro-mechanical analysis of geomembrane-sand interactions using DEM. Comput Geotech (2017), http://
dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compgeo.2017.08.019
2. Numerical modeling of interface direct shear test
The method of modeling interface direct shear test will be intro-
duced in this part. The contact models are described first. After-
wards, the method of modeling the roughness of geomembrane
surface is introduced. Finally, the approach of 3D modeling of
interface direct shear test is presented.
2.1. Contact models
An open source DEM platform, ESyS-Particle, is employed in this
study. The materials are modeled as spherical particles interacting
with neighboring particles or rigid smooth platens. Particle motion
can be decomposed into two independent parts; namely, transla-
tional motion and rotation. The former is governed by Newton’s
second law, while the latter is assumed to be the consequence of
interparticle friction [20].
Sand-sand, geomembrane-sand and sand-platen interactions
are modeled with cohesionless frictional contact models, in which
the contact forces between two entities (particle and/or platen) are
evaluated by a linear force-displacement contact law:
F n ¼ K n Un ð1Þ
F ts ¼ F t1
s þ K s dU s ð2Þ
where Fn is the normal contact force; Kn is the normal contact stiff-
ness; Un is the relative displacement in the normal direction; F ts ,
F t1
s are the shear forces at current and previous time steps, respec-
tively; dU s is the incremental displacement in tangential direction;
Ks is the shear contact stiffness. The interparticle sliding is governed
by Coulomb’s friction law [20,21], and it is assumed that there is no
friction between sand particles and platens. Kn and Ks are determined
by assuming that the stiffnesses of the two contacting entities act in
series:
i
kn kn
j
Kn ¼ i j
ð3Þ
kn þ kn
 S.-J. Feng et al. / Computers and Geotechnics xxx (2017) xxx–xxx 3

i j Table 1
ks ks
Ks ¼ i j
ð4Þ Calibrated micro-mechanical parameters of sand and geomembrane.
ks þ ks
Numerical triaxial shear test

where kn and ks are the normal stiffness and the shear stiffness of an Density of sand particles, qs (kg/m3) 2640  106
entity, respectively; the superscripts i and j denote the two entities D50 (mm) 0.74
Cu 1.69
in contact. Cc 0.99
Geomembrane is modeled with bonded particles. Similarly, the kn/r (Pa) 1  108
interaction between geomembrane and platen is also modeled kn/ks 1.5
with bonded contact model. Two entities in contact are initially Friction coefficient between sand particles, fs 0.7
Numerical tensile test
assumed to be bonded together. The bond between two entities
Density of geomembrane, qg (kg/m3) 940  106
may undergo normal and shear forces, which can be calculated Particle diameter, dg (mm) 1.53
by Eqs. (1) and (2), as well as bending and twisting moments kn/r (Pa) 1.09  105
[20]. The bonds are assumed to be unbreakable in this study. kn/ks 2.5
Therefore, the motion of cohesionless sand particles and Numerical interface direct shear test
Friction coefficient between geomembrane and sand particles, fg 0.37
geomembrane is governed by the contact stiffnesses of particles
(kn and ks) and the interparticle friction coefficient, f. In Section 3,
the micro-mechanical parameters of sand and geomembrane are
calibrated by triaxial and tensile tests, respectively, and the friction
coefficient between geomembrane and sand particles is calibrated
by interface direct shear test. The contact stiffness of platens is 600
assumed to be the same as that of the sand particles. Confining pressure
100 kPa
500 150 kPa
2.2. Discrete element modeling of geomembrane 200 kPa
Deviatoric stress (kPa) 400
Geomembranes are continuum material with smooth or rough
surface, and the surface roughness has been identified as a primary
300
factor influencing interface shear strength [22]. Uesugi and Kishida
[23] proposed a roughness parameter, normalized roughness (Rn),
to quantify the surface roughness: 200

Rmax
Rn ¼ ð5Þ 100
D50

where D50 is the mean diameter of sand particles; Rmax is the verti- 0
0 2 4 6 8 10
cal peak-to-valley distance in Fig. 1 with reference to a sand particle
with D50. The surface can be defined as ‘smooth’ for Rn < 0.02, ‘inter- Axial strain (%)
mediate’ for 0.02  Rn  0.5, and ‘rough’ for Rn > 0.5 [24]. Fig. 3. Stress-strain relationships in simulation of triaxial test.
To reproduce the surface of geomembrane, an effective method
is developed as follows. As shown in Fig. 1, every four adjacent
bonded geomembrane particles, with their centers placed at the
four corners of a square with side length of l, form a ‘‘valley”,
and the geomembrane particle vertex is the ‘‘peak”. Since sand par-
ticles cannot directly contact the ‘‘valley bottom” when placed on 30
the geomembrane, Rmax is then determined as
sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi (13 %, 23.1 kN/m)
2 25
l
Rmax ¼ ðr þ RÞ  ðr þ RÞ2  ð6Þ
2
Tensile stress (kN/m)

where R is the radius of a geomembrane particle; r is the radius 20

of sand particle (r = 0.5  D50). Therefore, Rn is calculated as
qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
2 l2 15
Rmax ðR þ rÞ  ðr þ RÞ  2
Rn ¼ ¼
D50 2r
2 sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi3
   2 2
R R l 10
¼ 0:5  4 1 þ  1þ  25 ð7Þ
r r 2r

and the particle distance, l, can be determined as follows: 5

sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
  sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
  ffi
R 2R
l ¼ 2r 2 1þ Rn  2R2n ¼ D50 2 1 þ Rn  2R2n ð8Þ 0
r D50 0 5 10 15 20
Strain (%)
In this way, geomembrane with various roughness can be simulated
by adjusting the value of l. Fig. 4. Stress-strain relationship in numerical tensile test of geomembrane.

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4 S.-J. Feng et al. / Computers and Geotechnics xxx (2017) xxx–xxx

(a) 1000
Experimental σy=10 kPa σy=100 kPa σy=500 kPa
DEM σy=10 kPa σy=100 kPa σy=500 kPa

Shear stress (kPa)

100

10

1
0 1 2 3 4 5
Shear displacement (mm)

(b) 300
o
Peak stress (Experimental) Fitting line (19.8 )
o
Peak stress (DEM) Fitting line (17.8 )
250 o
Residual stress (Experimental) Fitting line (14.4 )
o
Residual stress (DEM) Fitting line (14.0 )
200
Shear stress (kPa)

150

100

50

0
0 100 200 300 400 500 600
Normal stress (kPa)

Fig. 5. Comparison between the numerical and the experimental interface direct shear tests: (a) shear stress versus shear displacement; (b) shear stress versus normal stress.

2.3. 3D modeling of interface direct shear test
The model configuration of the interface direct shear test is
shown in Fig. 2. The geomembrane is bonded to the bottom platen
to prevent relative sliding between them. The bottom platen can
freely move in x direction but is confined in y and z directions. Sand
particles are positioned against the geomembrane and packed
within a box consisting of five smooth and rigid platens. The four
vertical platens are kept fixed during the whole shearing process,
while the top platen can freely move in vertical direction so that
a prescribed normal stress, ry, can be achieved. The interface direct
shear test is performed by moving the bottom platen with a
displacement rate, vx.
Both the sand particle size and the geomembrane thickness
adopted in the numerical simulations are identical to those of
the real materials. On the one hand, it is unrealistic to perform sim-
ulations using the same sample size as that in the laboratory test
due to the limited computation capacity. On the other hand, the
sample size should be large enough since the numerical results
would be inaccurate due to the boundary effects [25]. Therefore,
it is critical to set a reasonable sample dimensions to balance accu-
racy and computation cost.
The ASTM standard D5321/D5321M-14 [19] indicates that the
box length, L, or width, W, should be at least 300 mm or 15 times
D85 of coarse sand, whichever is greater; and the box thickness, H,
should be at least 60 mm or 6 times the maximum particle size of
the coarse sand, whichever is greater. Jacobson et al. [25] con-
ducted a series of DEM simulations of direct shear test with L/D50
ranging from 6.5 to 177, the results indicated that L/D50  33 gave
well-defined shear band. Frost et al. [12] studied the extent of
shear zone at the interface between geomembrane and sand
through laboratory tests, and found that the shear zone extended
2 particle diameters from the interface for smooth geomembrane
and 4 particle diameters for slightly textured geomembrane, and
6 particle diameters for moderately/heavily textured geomem-
brane. Therefore, in this study, the width and the length of the sand
sample are set as 35 times D50, and the height is 10 times D50. In
order to achieve quasi-static condition within a reasonable compu-
tational time, the particle density is scaled up by a factor of 106 as
suggested by Thornton [26] and Zhao et al. [27]. In this way, the
particle velocity and acceleration could be significantly reduced,
while the strain and stress within the sample are not affected [27].
The numerical interface direct shear test consists of two stages:
sample preparation and direct shear. During the sample preparation

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 S.-J. Feng et al. / Computers and Geotechnics xxx (2017) xxx–xxx 5

Table 2
Simulation scheme of interface direct shear tests between geomembrane and sand. Rn: normalized roughness of geomembrane surface; ry: normal stress (kPa); e0: initial void
ratio; sp: peak shear stress (kPa); sr: residual shear stress (kPa); t: shear band thickness (D50); h: vertical deformation of the sand sample during shearing (mm).

Group Rn ry (kPa) e0 sp (kPa) sr (kPa) t (D50) h (mm)

I 0.02 100 0.66 36.5 28.6 3.0 0.093
0.25 42.4 31.7 3.5 0.124
0.50 45.1 33.4 4.4 0.155
II 0.02 10 0.66 4.1 3.0 3.4 0.193
100 36.5 28.6 3.0 0.093
500 159.0 128 2.7 0.037
III 0.02 100 0.62 37.1 28.4 2.8 0.173
0.66 36.5 28.6 3.0 0.093
0.74 37.4 29.2 3.2 0.016

Fig. 6. Sample deformation during the direct shear test: (a) oblique view (the color of a soil particle reflects the magnitude of particle displacement); (b) side view (the color is
used to locate soil particles). (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)

stage, geomembrane is firstly generated and bonded to the rigid bot-

tom platen. After that, granular sand particles are randomly gener-
ated within the shear box and directly contacted with the
geomembrane. Afterwards, a set of normal stresses with magnitude
gradually increasing from zero to a specific value, ry, are applied on
the top platen. To generate samples with different initial void ratio,
different values of friction coefficient between sand particles are
employed during this process. After the equilibrium state is reached,
the friction coefficient is then restored and fixed to the specific
value. During the direct shear stage, a displacement rate, vx, is
applied to the bottom platen. The shear stress, particle displace-
ment, number of interparticle contacts, and contact force are
recorded during the shearing process.

3. Calibration of model parameters

The numerical interface direct shear tests conducted in this

Fig. 7. Displacement vectors of sand particles after the direct shear test: (a) x-y
plane; (b) z-y plane.
study use similar materials with those in the experiments con-
ducted by DeJong and Westgate [11]. Poorly graded, subrounded
Ottawa 20/30 sand with D50 of 0.74 mm, and a smooth HDPE
geomembrane with a thickness of 1.53 mm were used in the
laboratory tests. The yield stress and the yield strain of the

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6 S.-J. Feng et al. / Computers and Geotechnics xxx (2017) xxx–xxx
(a)
S =0.0 mm
(b)
Mean contact force (N)
0.020
S=0.0 mm
0.015
0.010
0.005
0.000
0 5 10 15 20
Distance from left wall (mm)
(c)
S =0.0 mm
Fig. 8. Force chains in the sample: (a) top view of the force chains; (b) side view of the force chains; (c) orientations of the force chains in the x-y plane.
geomembrane were 23.1 kN/m and 13%, respectively. The interface
direct shear tests were conducted at normal stresses of 10, 100,
and 500 kPa. The sand samples were sheared at a displacement
rate of 1.3 mm/min to a total displacement of 12.5 mm.
3.1. Calibration of micro-mechanical parameters of sand
Simulation of triaxial test is performed using DEM to calibrate
the micro-mechanical parameters of sand. The simulation
procedures are similar to those of the sample preparation stage
in Section 2.3. After the equilibrium state is reached, deviatoric
stress is applied. In the simulation, particle number highly influ-
ences the results. However, if the particle number exceeds 8000,
the results do not change much [26,28]. Therefore, in this study,
8324 particles are randomly generated within a cubic space
(width = length = height = 14.5 mm) to perform the simulation.
D50, Cu and Cc (see Table 1) of the sand are the same as those in
DeJong and Westgate [11], thus the grain-size distribution of sand
in the simulation is almost the same as that in the laboratory test.
The simulation is conducted under three confining pressures: 100,
150 and 200 kPa. The friction angle of sand is adopted as the index
to evaluate the calibration. By trial and error, the obtained friction
angle at critical state is 30.6°, while the measured value in labora-
tory test is 33.4°. The reason for this discrepancy is as follows. Real
sand particles have irregular shapes, and there exists rolling resis-
tance when relative movement happens between two particles,
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dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compgeo.2017.08.019
S =5.0 mm
Mean contact force (N)
0.020
S=5.0 mm
0.015
0.010
0.005
0.000
25 0 5 10 15 20 25
Distance from left wall (mm)
S =5.0 mm
which is very important for controlling the behavior of granular
materials [29]. But the sand particles are assumed to be spherical
and particle rotation is assumed to be free in ESyS-Particle.
Nonetheless, since the shearing mostly occurs in the
geomembrane-sand interface in the interface shear tests (see Sec-
tion 4, within the shear box, particles placed at the geomembrane-
sand interface have the largest shear displacement during simula-
tions), the influence of this discrepancy on interface shear behavior
is not significant. The micro-mechanical parameters of the sand are
then determined and summarized in Table 1. The stress-strain
relationships in the simulation are shown in Fig. 3.
3.2. Calibration of micro-mechanical parameters of geomembrane
Numerical tensile test is carried out to obtain the contact stiff-
nesses of particles forming the smooth HDPE geomembrane (kn
and ks). 1600 particles are bonded together to simulate the smooth
geomembrane with dimensions of 10.36  10.36 mm. In order to
generate a smooth surface (Rn < 0.02), the particle distance, l, is
set as 0.258 mm. A central part of the sample marked with red1
color (see Fig. 4) with a width of 5.18 mm is used to measure the ten-
sile strain during the simulation, which ensures that the deformation
is representative.
1
For interpretation of color in Fig. 4, the reader is referred to the web version of
this article.
 S.-J. Feng et al. / Computers and Geotechnics xxx (2017) xxx–xxx 7

During the dragging process, a small displacement rate of
107 mm/s is applied at one side of the geomembrane, while the
other side is fixed. The stress-strain relationship is adopted to eval-
uate the calibration. As shown in Fig. 4, the tensile stress reaches
23.1 kN/m when the tensile strain is 13%, which is consistent with
the results in the laboratory test. The corresponding micro-
mechanical parameters of geomembrane are then determined
and summarized in Table 1. It should be noted that the relationship
between force and strain of the HDPE geomembrane in the labora-
tory test was nonlinear [30], which was caused by the complicated
properties of the geomembrane. However, since geomembrane is
bonded to the bottom platen in the numerical interface direct
shear test, the effect of the difference is negligible.
at a very small displacement (e.g., S = 0.1 mm for the case of
100 kPa), then slightly decreases, and finally sustains around a
stable (i.e., residual) value. The peak and residual shear stresses
are then plotted against the respective normal stress to obtain fail-
ure envelopes, as shown in Fig. 5b. Fig. 5 shows that the simulation
results match the experimental results reasonably well, which
indicates that the interface direct shear test can be well simulated
by the present method and further confirms that the micro-
mechanical parameters determined from the calibration work in
Sections 3.1 and 3.2 are reasonable. In the following part, the
micro-mechanical interactions between geomembrane and sand
will be comprehensively investigated using the present method.

4. Micro-mechanical interactions between geomembrane and

3.3. Calibration results of the interface direct shear test sand

Simulation of interface direct shear test is conducted under
three normal stresses: 10, 100 and 500 kPa, the same as those in
the laboratory tests. The sand samples are sheared at a displace-
ment rate of 1.3 mm/min to a total displacement of 5.0 mm. By
trial and error, the friction coefficient between geomembrane
and sand particles, fg, is determined as 0.37 (see Table 1). The com-
parison between the numerical and the experimental results is
illustrated in Fig. 5. As shown in Fig. 5a, the shear stress rapidly
increases with shear displacement (S) and reaches a peak value
The sand and geomembrane with calibrated parameters are
adopted to conduct the parametric study. The input parameters
are summarized in Table 1. The simulation scheme of the interface
direct shear tests is summarized in Table 2. Three groups are
adopted to investigate the influences of roughness of geomem-
brane surface, normal stress, and initial void ratio on the interac-
tions between geomembrane and sand. In each group, particle
displacement, number of interparticle contacts, and force chain
are adopted to evaluate the micro-mechanical interactions.

Fig. 9. Vertical distributions of soil particle displacement at the end of the test with different normalized roughnesses of geomembrane surface: (a) horizontal displacement;
(b) vertical displacement.

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4.1. Shear behavior at the geomembrane-sand interface the shear band in this case is determined as 3.0 times D50. The
method is also applied in the other cases to locate the shear band.
The case with Rn = 0.02 in Group I in Table 2 is adopted to con- The force chains in the sample are illustrated in Fig. 8. In order
cretely illustrate the shear behavior at the geomembrane-sand to measure the mean contact force, the sample is uniformly
interface. Fig. 6 presents deformation of the sample during the divided into 17 parts along the horizontal direction, the mean con-
direct shear test. Shear distortion concentrates within a narrow tact force in part i, Fi , is calculated as
zone, which is termed as shear band in this study, and no shear dis- Pmi Pnk c
jf j
tortion is observed outside the shear band. Fig. 7 shows displace- Fi ¼ Pmi c¼1 k
k¼1
ð9Þ
ment vectors of the sand particles at the end of the test. The n
k¼1 k
displacement largely concentrates within the shear band. As
where mi is the number of particles with their center located in part
shown in Fig. 7a, particles within the shear band generally move c
i; nk is the contact number of particle k; jf k j is the absolute value of
along the shear direction, most of the particles outside the shear
the contact force acting on particle k through contact c. At the
band are driven upward due to dilation. Comparing Figs. 7a and
beginning of the test (S = 0.0 mm), the distribution of force chains
Fig. 7b, it is clear that the components of the displacement vectors
exhibits a homogeneous pattern, the mean contact force uniformly
in z direction are significantly smaller than those in x and y direc-
distributes along the horizontal direction (Fig. 8b), the orientation
tions due to the confining effect in z direction (Fig. 2).
of the contact forces is nearly vertical (Fig. 8c). During the shearing
In order to quantitatively locate the shear band, the sample is
process, the shear load is transferred from the geomembrane to the
uniformly divided into 100 parts with depth, the average horizon-
sand by frictional resistance, the force chains accordingly change. At
tal displacement of the sand particles in part i, Si, is measured. If Si/
the end of the test (S = 5.0 mm), strong force chains concentrate in
St  0.01 (St = 5.0 mm is the total displacement), part i is then
the left part of the sample, and the orientation of the contact forces
viewed as part of the shear band. In this way, the thickness of
changes from nearly vertical to diagonal or even nearly horizontal.

(a)
(a) 8
5Q 
Rn=0.02 (S=0.1 mm)
7
Rn=0.02 (S=5.0 mm)
Rn=0.25 (S=0.1 mm)
Distance from bottom (mm)

6
Rn=0.25 (S=5.0 mm)
5 Rn=0.50 (S=0.1 mm) 5Q 
4
Rn=0.50 (S=5.0 mm)

2
5Q 

0
0 50 100 150 200 250 300
(b) 8
Number of sliding contacts
Rn=0.02 (S=0.1 mm)
(b) 7
Rn=0.02 (S=5.0 mm)
1800
Total contact Sliding contact Locked contact Rn=0.25 (S=0.1 mm)
Distance from bottom (mm)

6
Number of the interface contacts

1600 Rn=0.02 Rn=0.02

Rn=0.02 Rn=0.25 (S=5.0 mm)
Rn=0.25 Rn=0.25 Rn=0.25 5
1400
Rn=0.50 Rn=0.50 Rn=0.50 (S=0.1 mm)
Rn=0.50
1200
4
Rn=0.50 (S=5.0 mm)
1000
3
800
200 2

0 0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 0.04 0.05 0.06 0.07 0.08 0.09 0.10
Shear displacement (mm) Mean contact force (N)

Fig. 10. Influence of the normalized roughness of geomembrane surface on the Fig. 11. Influence of the normalized roughness of geomembrane surface on: (a)
number of: (a) sliding contacts in sand sample with depth; (b) contacts at the force chains at the end of the interface direct shear test; (b) vertical profiles of mean
geomembrane-soil interface. contact force.

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4.2. Effect of roughness of geomembrane surface on interface shear
behavior
Group I in Table 2 is adopted to investigate the effect of
roughness of geomembrane surface on the interface shear
behavior. Since D50 is constant in this study, different normalized
roughnesses of geomembrane surface, Rn, are achieved by setting
different particle distances, l (Eq. (8)). The vertical profiles of sand
particle displacement at the end of test are shown in Fig. 9. Positive
horizontal displacement means particle moves in the same direc-
tion as the shear direction, and positive vertical displacement
means particle moves upward. The regulation is valid for other fig-
ures. Most particles move toward the shear direction and upward.
Both the horizontal displacement and the vertical displacement
overall increase with depth. Moreover, obvious gradient of vertical
displacement is observed within the shear band (Fig. 9b), hence the
dilation largely occurs within the shear band. With the increase of
Rn, both the vertical displacement and the horizontal displacement
increase. The thickness of shear band also increases with increas-
ing Rn, forming approximately 3.0 times D50 in the case of
Rn = 0.02, and around 4.4 times D50 in the case of Rn = 0.5 (Table 2),
which is consistent with the results in the experimental observa-
tions using similar materials [12]. The measured sp/ry and sr/ry
and degree of dilation (h) also increase with increasing Rn (see
Table 2). The reason is that larger Rn means stronger interaction
between geomembrane surface and sand, which inevitably leads
to larger displacement of the sand particles.
In order to investigate the evolution of microstructure induced
by shearing, the evolution of sliding and locked contacts is studied.
Sliding contact is defined as a contact that overcomes the friction
force, otherwise it is a locked contact. The variations of number
of sliding contacts in the sand sample with depth under different
roughnesses are shown in Fig. 10a. The number of sliding contacts
is counted at shear displacements of 0.1 and 5.0 mm. Before shear-
ing, there is no sliding contact. Once the shearing process begins,
the number of sliding contacts sharply increases. At a specific dis-
placement, it increases with depth, especially in the shear band,
which is consistent with the displacement results in Fig. 9. Besides,
the number of sliding contacts in the sand sample generally
increases with increasing Rn (Fig. 10a), the reason is that the more
intense deformation in the sand sample caused by larger Rn (Fig. 9)
inevitably creates more sliding contacts in the sand sample. How-
ever, the number of sliding contacts at the interface shows a con-
trary trend (Fig. 10b) due to the interlocking between
geomembrane surface and sand caused by larger Rn. As shown in
Fig. 10b, the number of total contacts at the interface also increases
with increasing Rn, the reason is that larger Rn means larger contact
area between geomembrane surface and sand at the interface.
To further investigate the effect of roughness of geomembrane
surface on the shear behavior, force chains at the end of the test

Fig. 12. Vertical distributions of soil particle displacement at the end of the test under different normal stresses: (a) horizontal displacement; (b) vertical displacement.

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10 S.-J. Feng et al. / Computers and Geotechnics xxx (2017) xxx–xxx

(a) 8
(a)
σy=10 kPa (S =0.1 mm)
7
0 σy=10 kPa (S =5.0 mm)

Distance from bottom (mm)

6 σy=100 kPa (S =0.1 mm)
\
σy=100 kPa (S =5.0 mm)
]
6KHDUER[ 5 σy=500 kPa (S =0.1 mm)
[
σy=500 kPa (S =5.0 mm)
4
/HQJWK :HLJKW ™'
3
™'
™'
7KLFNQHVV ™' 2
0
3RWHQWLDO
™'
VKHDUEDQG 1

0.90 0
(b) e0=0.66, σy =10 kPa 0 100 200 300 400 500 600
e0=0.66, σy =100 kPa
0.85 Number of sliding contacts
e0=0.66, σy =500 kPa
e0=0.62, σy =100 kPa (b)
e0=0.74, σy =100 kPa
0.80 1800
SSL
Void ratio

Triaxial test results

Number of the interface contacts Total contact Sliding contact Locked contact
Initial state 1600
0.75
σy =10 kPa σy =10 kPa σy =10 kPa
˕ 

1400 σy =100 kPa σy =100 kPa σy =100 kPa

0.70 σy =500 kPa σy =500 kPa σy =500 kPa
1200

0.65 1000

800
0.60
1 10 100 1000 600
Mean principal stress (kPa)
400
Fig. 13. (a) Definition of observation zone M; (b) state diagram of sand during the
shearing process. 200

0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6
Shear displacement (mm)
are presented in Fig. 11a. The distribution of force chains for rela-
tively smooth surface (Rn = 0.02) is quite uniform, while there are Fig. 14. Influence of the normal stress on the number of: (a) sliding contacts in sand
more strong force chains in the left part of sand sample for sample with depth; (b) contacts at the geomembrane-soil interface.

Rn = 0.25 and Rn = 0.50 (intermediate to rough surface). Fig. 11b

presents the vertical profiles of mean contact force, which are
obtained using Eq. (9). At the displacement of 0.1 mm, the mean
contact force in the sample slightly increases with increasing Rn.
At the displacement of 5 mm, the mean contact forces in the lower
part are almost the same, but those in the upper part obviously
increase with increasing Rn. The reason is that the sand particles
in the upper part are largely disturbed by the dilation of particles
in the lower part at large displacement.
4.3. Effect of normal stress on interface shear behavior
Group II in Table 2 is adopted to investigate the effect of normal
stress. The vertical distributions of sand particle displacement
under different normal stresses are shown in Fig. 12. With the
increase of normal stress, both the horizontal and the vertical dis-
placements decrease, since higher normal stress means stronger
confining effect. The shear bands are localized within a thin layer
with a thickness of 2.7–3.4 times D50 and the thickness of shear
band decreases with increasing normal stress (Table 2). Similarly,
sp/ry and sr/ry also decrease with increasing normal stress, from
0.41 to 0.318 and 0.3 to 0.256, respectively. The interface shear
strength is strongly linked to the shear band thickness, since it is
observed that sp/ry and sr/ry increase with increasing shear band
thickness in both Group I and Group II.
It is well known that sand dilation is a function of void ratio and
stress state. Therefore, the state parameter w [32], which is simply
defined as the vertical (void ratio) offset of the state from the SSL, is
employed in this study to investigate the dilation mechanism. In
order to determine the state parameter in each simulation, the
SSL is firstly determined using effective stress and void ratio at
the steady state of numerical triaxial tests (see Section 3.1). In
order to examine the changes in void ratio and mean principal
stress inside the sample, an observation zone M is defined and
shown in Fig. 13a. Within the observation zone, the average stress
tensor is calculated from average stresses of particles with centroid
located within the zone [31]:
!
1n XX ðcÞ 
ðpÞ  ðc;pÞ ðcÞ
rij ¼  P xi  xi ni F j ð10Þ
N p V ðpÞ Np Nc
where rij is the average stress tensor within the observation zone;
Np is the number of sand particles with centroid located within the
observation zone; Nc is the number of contacts of these particles; n

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 S.-J. Feng et al. / Computers and Geotechnics xxx (2017) xxx–xxx
(a) σy=10 kPa
σy=100 kPa
σy=500 kPa
(b) 8
σy=10 kPa (S =0.1 mm)
7
σy=10 kPa (S =5.0 mm)
6 σy=100 kPa (S =0.1 mm)
Distance from bottom (mm)
σy=100 kPa (S =5.0 mm)
5 is not significant (Table 2), which is consistent with the experimen-
σy=500 kPa (S =0.1 mm)
4
σy=500 kPa (S =5.0 mm)
3 (e0 = 0.62) and medium dense (e0 = 0.66) samples, but positive in
2 (e0 = 0.62) and medium dense (e0 = 0.66) samples, while compres-
1 by the fact that more sand particles move upward with decreasing
0
0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6
Mean contact force (N)
Fig. 15. Influence of the normal stress on: (a) force chains at the end of the interface
direct shear test; (b) vertical profiles of mean contact force.
is the porosity within the observation zone; V(p) is the volume of
particle (p); xi(p) and xi(c) are the locations of a particle centroid
and its contact, respectively; ni(c,p) is the unit normal vector directed
from a particle centroid to its contact location; and Fj(c) is the force
acting at contact (c). Fig. 13b is the state diagram of sand in the
observation zone during shearing. Each dot in Fig. 13b represents
an e-P0 [P0 = 1/3  (r11 + r22 + r33)] state and is recorded for every
1.0 mm of shear displacement except for the triaxial test results.
As shown in Fig. 13b, the initial w is negative in all the cases with
e0 = 0.66, and the absolute value of w decreases with increasing nor-
mal stress. Hence dilation is observed in all the cases with e0 = 0.66
and the most intense dilation occurs in the case of ry = 10 kPa.
The variations of number of sliding contacts in the sand sample
with depth under various normal stresses are shown in Fig. 14a.
The number of sliding contacts also decreases with increasing nor-
mal stress. Fig. 14b illustrates the evolution of different types of
contacts at the interface with shear displacement. Similarly, the
number of sliding contacts decreases with increasing normal
stress. On the contrary, the numbers of total contacts and locked
contacts increase with increasing normal stress. In the case of
Please cite this article in press as: Feng S-J et al. Micro-mechanical analysis of geomembrane-sand interactions using DEM. Comput Geotech (2017), http://
dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compgeo.2017.08.019
11
ry = 10 kPa, an obvious decrease of the numbers of total contacts
and locked contacts is observed with displacement increasing from
2.0 to 5.0 mm, while the change in sliding contact is not significant.
However, in the cases of ry = 100 and 500 kPa, the variations are
negligible after the shear displacement exceeds 0.1 mm.
Fig. 15a presents the influence of normal stress on force chains
at the end of the test. The force chains become stronger with
increasing normal stress. Fig. 15b shows the vertical profiles of
mean contact force under different normal stresses. The mean con-
tact force does not change much with depth and displacement for
ry = 10 and 100 kPa. But in the case of ry = 500 kPa, the mean con-
tact force substantially increases with displacement; at the dis-
placement of 5 mm, the mean contact force significantly
increases with depth. Therefore, under relatively high normal
stress, the confining effect is strong, and the force chains are
strengthened with displacement although the number of sliding
contacts does not change much (see Fig. 14a).
4.4. Effect of initial void ratio on interface shear behavior
Group III in Table 2 is adopted to investigate the effect of initial
void ratio, e0, on the interface shear behavior. Different e0 values
are achieved by setting different initial friction coefficients
between sand particles during the compaction stage. It is interest-
ing that the influence of e0 on the peak and residual shear stresses
tal observations [11]. The reason is that the concerned sand parti-
cles are spherical and the plastic deformation of geomembrane is
not considered.
As shown in Fig. 13b, the initial w is negative in the dense
the loose sample (e0 = 0.74). Therefore, dilation occurs in the dense
sion occurs in the loose sample (e0 = 0.74). This is also confirmed
e0 (see Fig. 16b). In Fig. 16, both the displacement and the thickness
of shear band increase with increasing e0. The reason is that larger
0.7 0.8 e0 means sand particles can easily rearrange, leading to larger hor-
izontal displacement. It is also observed that sp and sr overall
increase with increasing thickness of shear band (Table 2), which
further confirms that the interface shear strength is strongly linked
to the thickness of shear band.
The influence of e0 on the contacts is shown in Fig. 17. In
Fig. 17a, the number of sliding contacts overall increases with
increasing e0 for S = 0.1 mm, but the difference is not significant
for S = 5 mm. As shown in Fig. 17b, the numbers of total contacts
at the interface of medium dense (e0 = 0.66) and dense (e0 = 0.62)
samples are larger than that of loose sample (e0 = 0.74) at the early
shearing stage but they are almost the same for all the three sam-
ples when the shear displacement is large enough. Hence, initial
void ratio greatly influences the initial number of particle contacts
but has relatively small influence on it after the sand structure is
disturbed by the shearing process.
The influence of initial void ratio on force chains at the end of
the test is shown in Fig. 18a. The force chains in the dense sample
(e0 = 0.62) are relatively uniform, while there are more strong force
chains in the left part of loose sample (e0 = 0.74), since larger sand
displacement in loose sample (see Fig. 16) makes more sand parti-
cles concentrate in the left part. The vertical profiles of mean con-
tact force are shown in Fig. 18b. An interesting phenomenon is
observed. At the displacement of 0.1 mm, the initial void ratio
makes little difference of the profiles of mean contact force for
dense (e0 = 0.62) and medium dense (e0 = 0.66) samples, while
loose sample (e0 = 0.74) tends to have larger mean contact force
in the sand. However, at the displacement of 5 mm, the profiles
12 S.-J. Feng et al. / Computers and Geotechnics xxx (2017) xxx–xxx

Fig. 16. Vertical distributions of soil particle displacement at the end of the test with different initial void ratios: (a) horizontal displacement; (b) vertical displacement.

of medium dense (e0 = 0.66) and loose (e0 = 0.74) samples differ
slightly, especially in the lower part, while dense sample
(e0 = 0.62) has larger mean contact force near the geomembrane-
sand interface but has smaller mean contact force in the sand.
5. Summary and conclusions
Three-dimensional simulations of interface direct shear test
between geomembrane and sand are conducted using DEM in this
study. An overlapping technique is established to reasonably sim-
ulate the roughness of geomembrane surface. The experimental
work conducted by DeJong and Westgate [11] is adopted to cali-
brate the micro-mechanical parameters of sand and geomembrane.
The calibration results of the interface direct shear test indicate
that interface direct shear test can be well simulated by the present
method and the obtained micro-mechanical parameters are rea-
sonable. Three groups of numerical simulation are carried out to
investigate the influences of roughness of geomembrane surface,
normal stress, and initial void ratio on the interface shear behavior.
Some major conclusions can be drawn as follows:
(1) The method is a practical tool to investigate the micro-
mechanical interactions between geomembrane and sand,
including particle displacement, void ratio and stress state,
number of interparticle contacts, and distribution, magni-
tude and orientation of contact force during the shearing
process. During the shearing process, the displacement lar-
gely concentrates within the shear band. The thickness of
shear band ranges from 2.7 to 4.4 times D50 of sand and is
strongly linked to the interface shear strength.
(2) Surface roughness is an important factor influencing inter-
face shear behavior. With the increase of normalized rough-
ness (Rn), stronger interaction between geomembrane and
sand is developed, leading to larger displacement of sand
particles, increasing the thickness of shear band (from 3.0
to 4.4 times D50), the ratio of interface shear strength to nor-
mal stress (from 0.365 to 0.451 and 0.286 to 0.334 at the
peak and residual states, respectively) and the number of
sliding contacts.
(3) Normal stress is another important factor influencing the
interface shear behavior. Since higher normal stress means
stronger confining effect, the increasing normal stress leads
to the decrease of horizontal and vertical displacements and
the number of sliding contacts, the ratio of interface shear
strength to normal stress decreases from 0.41 to 0.318 and
0.3 to 0.256 at peak and residual states, respectively, the
thickness of shear band also decreases from 3.4 to 2.7 times
D50. Under relatively high normal stress, the force chains are
strengthened with displacement although the number of
sliding contacts does not change much.

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 S.-J. Feng et al. / Computers and Geotechnics xxx (2017) xxx–xxx 13

(a) 8 (a)
e0=0.62 (S =0.1 mm) H 
7
e0=0.62 (S =5.0 mm)
e0=0.66 (S =0.1 mm)
Distance from bottom (mm)

6
e0=0.66 (S =5.0 mm)
5 e0=0.74 (S =0.1 mm) H 
e0=0.74 (S =5.0 mm)
4

3
H 
2

0
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 (b) 8
Number of sliding contacts
e0=0.61
=0.62 (S=0.1 mm)

Distance from bottom (mm)

7
(b) e0=0.62 (S=5.0 mm)
1800 6 e0=0.66 (S=0.1 mm)
Total contact Sliding contact Locked contact e0=0.66 (S=5.0 mm)
1600
Number of the interface contacts

e0=0.62 e0=0.62 e0=0.62 5 e0=0.74 (S=0.1 mm)

1400 e0=0.66 e0=0.66 e0=0.66 e0=0.74 (S=5.0 mm)
e0=0.74 e0=0.74 e0=0.74 4
1200
3
1000

800 2
200
1

0 Mean contact force (N)
0 1 2 3
Shear displacement (mm)
Fig. 17. Influence of the initial void ratio on the number of: (a) sliding contacts in
sand sample with depth; (b) contacts at the geomembrane-soil interface.
(4) With the increase of initial void ratio (e0) from 0.62 to 0.74,
horizontal and vertical displacements increase, the thickness
of shear band slightly increases from 2.8 to 3.2 times D50.
The influence of e0 on the peak and residual shear stresses
is not significant. The change in state parameter reveals that
dilation occurs in the dense (e0 = 0.62) and medium dense
(e0 = 0.66) samples, while compression occurs in the loose
sample (e0 = 0.74). Moreover, the initial void ratio greatly
influences the initial number of particle contacts but has rel-
atively small influence on it after the sand structure is dis-
turbed by the shearing process.
Acknowledgments
Much of the work described in this paper was supported by the
National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant Nos.
41222021 and 41572265, the National Basic Research Program of
China (973 Program) under Grant No. 2012CB719803, the Program
for New Century Excellent Talents in University under Grant No.
0
0.04 0.05 0.06 0.07 0.08 0.09 0.10
4 5 6
Fig. 18. Influence of the initial void ratio on: (a) force chains at the end of the
interface direct shear test; (b) vertical profiles of mean contact force.
NCET-13-0421. The writers would like to greatly acknowledge all
these financial supports and express the most sincere gratitude.
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