Acta Geotechnica (2023) 18:57–75

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11440-022-01476-x (0123456789().,-volV)(0123456789().,-volV)

RESEARCH PAPER

Micromechanically inspired investigation of cemented granular

materials: part II— from experiments to modelling and back
Alessandro Tengattini1,2 • Giang D. Nguyen3 • Gioacchino Viggiani1 • Itai Einav4

Received: 12 November 2020 / Accepted: 15 January 2022 / Published online: 12 April 2022
Ó The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2022

Abstract
This paper presents an experimental and analytical/numerical study of the mechanics of cemented granular materials
(CGMs). This study incorporates both in situ X-ray tomography and regularised finite element simulations, whose com-
bination offers a unique, complementary insight into the multiscale processes that drive the mechanical response of CGMs.
Being the second in a set of a two-part contribution, this paper takes advantage of the image analysis tools developed in
Part I to quantitatively explore the effects of boundary conditions on grain-scale processes as well as material properties.
We reveal, for example, the influence of the degree of cementation on the spatial distribution of damage and suggest the
existence of a local ultimate cement size distribution that is independent from the initial cement content. This paper also
validates the predictions of a micromechanically inspired constitutive model at three different scales: in terms of the
macroscopic response, the mesoscopic emergence of localisation patterns and the evolution of microscale inelastic pro-
cesses. A unique feature that sets our model apart from previous CGM models is the adoption of only measurable internal
variables, capable of representing grain-scale processes such as the damage of cement bridges. Its statistically represen-
tative experimental quantification is found to be in good agreement with the model predictions.

Keywords Cemented granular materials  Constitutive modelling  Damage  Localisation  Tomography

1 Introduction often technically challenging to quantify the microscale

An increasing number of studies introduce micro-me-
chanically inspired continuum models whose state vari-
ables could be evaluated, at least conceptually, using grain-
scale observations [5, 7, 13, 28]. This approach benefits
from the ever-increasing grain scale insight provided by
full-field in situ tests as well as grain-scale numerical
simulations and has proven very powerful in terms of
model performance and adaptability. Nonetheless, it is
& Alessandro Tengattini
alessandro.tengattini@3sr-grenoble.fr
1
Univ. Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, Grenoble INP, 3SR, Grenoble,
France
2
Institute Laue-Langevin, Grenoble, France
3
Department of Civil, Environmental and Mining Engineering,
University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia
4
Sydney Centre in Geomechanics and Mining Materials,
School of Civil Engineering, The University of Sydney,
2006, Sydney, Australia
processes described by the internal variables given their
generally very heterogeneous fluctuations in space. Con-
sequently, the predictions of these models are generally not
validated at the scale of either the grain or the represen-
tative elementary volume.
This continuum-micromechanical cross-validation step
can be useful both for assessing the quality of a model at
multiple scales and for verifying the validity of the adopted
hypotheses. While the literature presents many examples of
advanced testing coupled with image processing focused
on quantifying grain-scale processes (e.g.
[4, 11, 21, 23, 24, 42]), there appears to be a substantial
lack of connections of these studies to the available micro-
mechanically inspired continuum models. Additionally,
most of these works focus on granular materials, while only
a few contributions (e.g. [40]) focus on the grain-scale
processes of cemented granular materials (CGMs here-
after), a broad class of geomaterials that share a common
microscale structure made of grains connected by cement
that partially or completely fills the voids.

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This is the second part of a two-paper contribution,
aimed at measuring the grain-scale response of CGMs,
with a focus on the grain-scale internal variables defined by
the model introduced in [35], which describe the dominant
micro-mechanical processes of deformation: grain crush-
ing, cement damage and fragment reorganisation [27]. In
Part I of this work [34], we proposed a suite of image
processing tools aimed at quantifying these key grain-scale
processes, underlying the macroscopic response of CGMs.
In particular, we focused on cement damage, and the
evolving probability density function of cement size on a
representative volume, both of which have not been eval-
uated before. For this purpose, an experimental campaign
on an especially designed model material was performed
while acquiring a series of X-ray tomographies at different
loading stages.
The aim of this Part II of the contribution is twofold.
Firstly, in Sect. 2 we study in detail an illustrative test,
taking advantage of the image processing tools presented in
Part I [34], to explore the interplay of key microscale
phenomena of grain rearrangement and cement damage
(Sect. 2.1). The effect of cement content and boundary
conditions (well known at the macroscopic scale, e.g.
[1, 10, 22, 39]) is also explored at the grain scale in
Sect. 2.2. Secondly, in Sect. 2.1.4 we study how these tools
allow for informing the micro-mechanics-based model
proposed in [35] and vice versa how this model, in com-
bination with numerical tools, can help cast a light on the
experimentally observed behaviour. This is not an
uncommon approach in itself, but this dialogue is here
carried both at the ‘macro’ and at the ‘micro’ levels. The
overarching aim of this work is in fact to propose a
micromechanically inspired methodological framework for
CGMs, which allows for two-way communications
between key classes of approaches to the study of geo-
materials (analytical, numerical and experimental) to be
expressed at multiple scales (Table 1).
Table 1 Table summarising the test conditions (confinement pres-
sure) and specimen details (cement content in mass) of the experi-
mental campaign
Pressure [kPa] Cement content
6% 8%
1500 CGB1500-6 CGB1500-8
1000 CGB1000-6 CGB1000-8
500 CGB500-6 CGB500-8
All the samples have a porosity of about 20% and are composed of
calcite-cemented glass beads. The tests specifically analysed in this
section are highlighted with bold font
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Acta Geotechnica (2023) 18:57–75
Fig. 1 Macroscopic stress–strain response for test CGB1500-8, run
under 1500 kPa confinement on a specimen with 8% mass cement
content. The numbers in green identify the individual scanning stages
analysed in this section
2 Analysis of experimental results from X-
ray CT
The main aim of the experimental campaign is to extract
measures of cement damage and to study their relations to
grain rearrangement. To this end, we start this section by
analysing an illustrative triaxial compression test, per-
formed under 1500 kPa confinement (mean effective
stress), on a specimen with a cement mass content of 8%.
The second aim is to establish micro-mechanical
explanations to the macroscopically observed phenomena
as a function of the levels of confinement and cement
content. To study the effect of confinement, a test under
500 kPa, as opposed to 1500 kPa, yet still with a similar
8% cementation is then analysed in Sect. 2.2.2. To study
the effect of cementation, a third test performed under 1500
kPa as in the reference test (1500 kPa) but having a lower
cement content (6% in mass) is studied in Sect. 2.2.1.
In Part I [34], the image processing tools have been
classified based on the methodological approach used,
being notably continuum or discrete. Herein, we focus on
the description of the processes occurring in the specimen
and the results are therefore organised depending on the
aspect they describe: the initial state of the specimens, the
local kinematics, and the cement damage during the tests.
All the measurements derived from tomographic data
presented here are three dimensional, and their represen-
tation in two dimensions is limited. Vertical slices are
mostly selected here to communicate crucial features, and
an effort has been made to select the same region of the
specimen for each measurement and at each step for a more
consistent comparison.
Acta Geotechnica (2023) 18:57–75
(a)
Fig. 2 Description of the initial state of test CGB1500-8: a trinarised vertical slice of the specimen with grains in white, cement in orange and air
in black; b granular porosity (defined as 1-Vgrains =Vtotal ); c cement fraction (Vcement =Vtotal ). Both the granular porosity and the cement fraction are
measured using 403 pixels cubes, placed on a regular grid whose nodes reside 10 pixels apart in each direction
2.1 Analysis of an illustrative test
This representative test was performed under 1500 kPa
confinement on a specimen containing 8% by mass of
cement. The test is named CGB1500-8 and was already
used in Part I [34] to showcase the image processing tools
developed in this study.
The macroscopic stress–strain response obtained from
this test, shown in Fig. 1, is typical of lightly cemented
granular materials: the response is substantially linear until
1.5% axial strain, after which the curve loses linearity. The
deviator stress peaks at about 3% axial strain, followed by a
progressive reduction of the load carried by the specimen
(softening), possibly approaching a plateau at around 10%
axial shortening, when the test was stopped. The mobilised
friction angle at the end of the test is  30 , essentially
equal to the critical friction angle of uncemented glass
beads.
The stress–strain curve shows the characteristic stress
relaxation spikes corresponding to the scanning stages,
marked in green, which are caused by the relaxation of
both the material and the loading apparatus when stopping
the loading for tomographic acquisitions. The axial stress
relaxation starts a few seconds after the loading ram has
been stopped and finishes after about three minutes. After
the loading phase is restarted, the axial stress is rapidly
recovered.
59
(b) (c)
2.1.1 Initial state
Figure 2a shows a vertical slice of the trinarised image
(i.e., an image where each voxel of the image has been
assigned to the grain, cement or pore phase) of the speci-
men at the beginning of the test, segmented with the
technique described in Part I [34]. Figure 2b presents the
distribution of the granular porosity /g ¼ 1  Vgrains =Vtotal ,
where Vgrains and Vtotal are the grain and total volumes,
respectively. This definition is chosen over the traditional
porosity (/ ¼ 1  Vsolid =Vtotal ) to avoid potential segmen-
tation issues caused by cement damage and is also used in
Sect. 2.1.2, to isolate the contribution of the grains to
dilation.
The specimen has an average initial porosity just above
21%, as one could expect for the densest packing of
spheres with a relatively monodispersed size1. The spatial
distribution of the granular porosity in Fig. 2b is relatively
homogeneous, except for a denser region below the centre
of the specimen. The effect of the homogeneity of the
specimen on its mechanical response will be numerically
assessed in Sect. 3.4.1.
Analogously, the spatial distribution of the cement
volume fraction (Vcement =Vtotal ) shown in Fig. 2c appears to
be relatively homogeneous, with an average volume frac-
tion around 7%, very close to the intended value.
The grain size distribution was found to be substantially
monodisperse (with a coefficient of uniformity
Cu ¼ D60 =D10 ¼ 1:7) with a D50 around 275 lm, for all
tests presented here. This is essentially constant throughout
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the test, i.e., there is a negligible amount of grain crushing,
as by design.
To describe the geometry of the individual cement
bridges, a possible approach is to study the statistical dis-
tribution of the cross-sectional areas of cylinders with
equivalent volumes and heights to the cement bonds. This
approach was first proposed in the model in [35] and can be
measured as detailed in Part I [34]. Figure 5b reports the
statistical cement size distribution at the initial stage of test
CGB1500-8. (The method used to compute the subsequent
stages is detailed in the next section.) The measured
average cross-sectional area is about 0.01 mm2 , corre-
sponding to a radius of 57 lm. This is to be compared to an
average grain radius of 137 lm. Other measurements, such
as the partial volume occupancy (not reported here), indi-
cate a level of cementation in agreement with the expected
one.
It is noted that this measurement of cementation is more
accurate than those used to produce the porosity and
cementation maps in Fig. 2, since they take into account
also the voxels that are only partially occupied by the
cement, and not just those having grey values above a fixed
threshold.
2.1.2 Local kinematics
Digital image correlation (DIC) allows for measuring the
kinematics of the material in a continuum sense. The dis-
placements of regularly spaced cubes 20 voxels apart and
15 voxels in size are measured as detailed in Part I [34].
Figure 3b shows the normalised vertical displacement
fields. This normalisation has been performed between zero
and the displacement at the bottom of the specimen mea-
sured by the DIC. These values well correspond to the
displacements measured by an LVDT (linear variable dif-
ferential transformer) and reported in Fig. 3c and d. Fig-
ure 3e and f reports the maximum shear strain and the
volumetric strain, respectively.
At the beginning of the test, the specimen undergoes a
substantially homogeneous axial strain. As the stress
approaches its peak (steps 02–03), the displacement field
starts becoming heterogeneous. Shortly after the peak, the
displacements localise in the bottom left (and top right)
corner of the sample. This is most likely due to stress
concentration induced by the specific boundary conditions,
as already observed in previous experiments for cemented
1
The analytical solution of the lowest possible density for monodis-
pffiffiffi
perse sphere packings is 1  p=ð3 2Þ  0:26, as conjectured by
Johannes Kepler in 1611, and recently proven by [20]. The
polydispersity of the grains in the specimen allows the attainment
of lower porosities, although the simplified approach used to trinarise
the image (and used only to compute porosity and cement distribu-
tions) might be partially responsible for this small discrepancy.
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Acta Geotechnica (2023) 18:57–75
and uncemented granular materials. Note that the key
features of the regions of localisation (notably their incli-
nation, thickness and the evolution of the ‘‘internal vari-
ables’’ within them) are not influenced by where
localisation originates within the sample. The incremental
volumetric strain fields in Fig. 3f highlight the dilatant
nature of this strain localisation, which is confirmed by the
increased granular porosity in Fig. 4. Dilation starts shortly
after the peak and stabilises before the end of the test, in
agreement with the typical microscopical observations for
CGMs at this level of confinement and density (e.g.
[26, 38]). The average porosity in the dilative regions is 
25%, with local peaks around 45%, to be compared with a
maximum attainable porosity of 48% for a monodisperse
packing of spheres [12]. It is reminded that digital image
correlation evaluates the incremental volumetric strain over
a step, whereas the granular porosity is here measured at
each scanning stage. These trend were also confirmed in
terms of the displacements of the individual grains, as
measured by ID-Track [4].
2.1.3 Cement damage
The quantitative study of cement damage is one of the
principal aims of this experimental campaign. Two com-
plementary definitions of damage have been proposed in
Part I [34]: damage of individual bridges (DI ) and statis-
tical damage (DS ). Individual damage expresses the dete-
rioration of individual cement bridges, which during a
given step is measured as the reduction of the volume of
cement above the partial volume effect limit, normalised
by its initial volume. As damage increases, the cement
shatters, passing from a dense and compact state to a
fragmented and sparse one. This causes a reduction in the
amount of voxels fully occupied by the cement and an
increase in those partially occupied by cement fragments.
The individual damage starts from a zero value at the
beginning of the test and can reach unity when all the
cement voxels above the partial volume limit are lost. A
threshold on the grey value of the voxels above the partial
volume effect of 0.055 was chosen for all the images of all
the tests analysed here.
The probability density function of the individual
damage values for the cement bridges is plotted in Fig. 5a.
At the initial stages of the test, most of the cement bridges
are intact (zero damage) and the majority of the damaged
bridges have very small DI values, where the technique
used is more likely to interpret the fluctuations of random
noise as damage. Nonetheless, a few of the cement bridges
are completely broken already during the initial step (a
closer scrutiny suggests that small bridges are mostly
affected). Similar observations can be made in the fol-
lowing step. In steps 02–03, corresponding to strain
Acta Geotechnica (2023) 18:57–75 61

Fig. 3 Results of the digital image correlation (DIC) analysis of test CGB1500-8. Row a indicates the step considered, row b reports the
normalised vertical displacement, which has been normalised in (c) by the total displacement of the step measured from the DIC itself. These
displacements well correspond to the ones measured with the LVDT (d), for 13.5 lm pixel size. It is reminded that the displacement is applied
from the bottom upwards. Row e reports the maximum shear strain, while row f shows the volumetric strain. Note that the Soil Mechanics sign
conventions, i.e., positive compressive strains, are adopted here

Fig. 4 Evolution of granular porosity throughout test CGB1500-8

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(a)
Fig. 5 Evolution of damage during test CGB1500-8. Evolution of the individual damage (a); Effective cement size distribution for the
corresponding stages (b)
hardening, a second peak appears in the individual damage
distribution, beside the 0 and 1 extremes. As the sample
reaches the softening regime, this peak moves to higher
damage values, but becomes progressively less evident,
and the damage distribution becomes more homogeneous.
At the end of the test, the distribution of individual damage
presents peaks corresponding to fully damaged and
undamaged bridges and a large amount of partially dam-
aged ones. The study of the spatial distribution of damage
presented below can help to better understand the meaning
of this result.
The constitutive model proposed in [35] and adopted
here as reference introduces the concept of effective
cement size distribution. Its underlying idea is that it is
possible to substitute a damaged bridge with an equivalent
one, made of non-damaged material and smaller in size.
The experimental equivalent proposed in Part I [34] is to
scale each cement bridge size by its corresponding indi-
vidual damage through 1  DI . This allows to derive
effective cement size distributions of the bonds as those in
Fig. 5b.
Beside the interest of comparing experimental results
against the proposed constitutive model, this approach
allows for investigating how damage affects the different
sizes of cement bridges. It can in fact be observed from
Fig. 5b that all the inter-granular spaces contain some
cement at the beginning of the test, but already after the
first step, fully uncemented contacts start to appear. The
larger cement bridges undergo less damage, and some
remain substantially unaffected throughout the test.
The model used herein also depends on a scalar measure
of damage, based on the evolution of the cement size
distribution defined as the area ratio in Fig. 13 of Part I
[34]. This damage is here named statistical damage (DS ),
as it is a collective measure of the failures of individual
bonds. It is possible to evaluate the statistical damage on
subsets of the specimen in order to look at its spatial
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Acta Geotechnica (2023) 18:57–75
(b)
distribution. Figure 6 shows the damage measured on 603
pixels cubes on a regular grid whose nodes are 30 pixels
apart. The damage is initially homogeneous throughout the
specimen. In the hardening regime, the statistical damage
starts concentrating in the top left and bottom right corners,
where the strain was also observed to localise (Fig. 3). In
the post-peak regime, the statistical damage further evolves
in these areas while remaining substantially constant in the
remainder of the specimen.
The presence of anisotropy in the initial orientation of
the cement bridges as well as the emergence of any sig-
nificant anisotropy induced by damage was also studied in
Part I [34], both in terms of specimen average and spatial
distributions. This analysis revealed low anisotropy, with
relative homogeneity throughout the sample, and very
modest fluctuations during the tests.
2.1.4 Interpretation of the results
At the end of the test, dilation, shear strain and damage
have localised in a well-defined region of the specimen, as
highlighted in the 3D renderings of Fig. 7. The set of tools
introduced in Part I [34] allows the study of different
aspects of the processes occurring in the sample, depicting
a coherent picture, highlighting an apparent correlation
between these fields.
In summary, the sample starts from a substantially
homogeneous state, as indicated by the cementation and
porosity fields. In the ‘‘sub-linear’’ regime, the incremental
strain field is homogeneous and accompanied by modest
and spatially homogeneous damage. In the hardening
regime (steps 02–03), the specimen starts behaving
heterogeneously. The top left and bottom right portions of
the specimen show a concentration of incremental shear
strain and moderate dilation, as confirmed by the analysis
of both porosity field and incremental volumetric strain
fields. In these regions, damage also starts concentrating.
Acta Geotechnica (2023) 18:57–75 63

Fig. 6 Vertical slices of the spatial distribution of the statistical damage DS throughout test CGB1500-8

Fig. 7 3D renderings at the end of the test CGB1500-8: a final porosity, b incremental maximum shear strain in the last step and (c) final
statistical damage. The colour maps used are the same as in their respective plots in Figs. 3, 4, and 6, but the areas with lower values have been
made transparent to highlight the crucial features

The occurrence of the deviator stress peak corresponds to
the concentration of strain and damage localisation, while
the remainder of the specimen undergoes almost-rigid body
displacement accommodated by the localised features,
experiencing negligible damage.
In the post-peak regime, dilation stabilises, and maxi-
mum incremental shear strain and damage concentrate in a
band roughly 10 grains thick, and inclined 45 . This is
particularly evident in the bottom right corner of the
specimen, while damage on the top right corner is more
diffuse. In the above, the use of the word localisation
‘‘band’’ had been deliberately avoided, as it could be
argued that up until the end of the test, both strain and
damage concentrate over a region that is too broad to be
termed a ‘‘band’’. The progressive concentration of the
deformation is a phenomenon systematically observed in
both ‘‘clean’’ and cemented granular materials, as shown,
for example, in [3, 21] and [18, 32], respectively. In all
these works, DIC analyses of sequences of X-ray CT scans
have shown the development of inhomogeneous
deformation before the stress peak, which starts concen-
trating at the beginning of the softening regime until the
localisation reaches a stable width at the end of the test.
These bands typically involve an amount of grains com-
parable to the one observed here. This paper adds to this
portrait of the behaviour a quantification of damage and its
statistical and spatial distributions.
The exact location in the specimen where localisation
bands appear is determined by several factors, such as a
weaker region of the material, the boundary conditions, or
an imperfection in the geometry of the specimen. The study
of the effect of some of these features will be discussed in
Sect. 3 using finite element (FE) analyses.
The study of the evolution of the porosity has revealed
that a region broader than the localisation band undergoes
dilation, although it mostly occurs before the shear band
reaches its stable width. An analogous behaviour was also
observed in clean granular materials [3, 21].

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2.2 Comparative analysis of the effect
of cementation and boundary conditions
In this section, we explore the effect of cement content and
confinement (mean effective stress) on the macroscopic
response, the localisation patterns as well as cement dam-
age. All the analyses described below adopt the same
parameters as those presented in the previous section.
2.2.1 Effect of cement content
Figure 8 reports the stress–strain responses of the two tri-
axial compression tests performed at 1500 kPa confine-
ment with 8% and 6% in mass of cement (thus named
CGB1500-8 and CGB1500-6, respectively). The cement
content does not affect the linear portion of the stress–
strain response, which is basically identical in the two
cases. The peak stress is about 10% lower for the specimen
with less cement and occurs at a larger strain, while the
values of deviator stress at the end of the tests are close to
each other.
Macroscopically, the effect of cement content is in
agreement with the literature: higher cementation increases
the peak stresses without significantly affecting the final
plateau—often associated with critical state [8, 31]. Pre-
vious experimental works had noted an increase in stiffness
with cement content (e.g. [1, 22]), although, in those tests,
cement and grains had similar elastic properties. This is not
the case for the material tested here, since glass is about
five times stiffer than calcite.
The porosity measured from the images is in this case
about 19%, which is marginally lower than that of the
previous specimen. The average cement content deduced
Fig. 8 Stress–strain curves for the tests run under 1500 kPa confine-
ment, with 8% and 6% cement content. The numbers in green
represent the individual scanning stages during test CGB1500-6
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Acta Geotechnica (2023) 18:57–75
from the images is about 6%, therefore lower than in the
previous tests, well coinciding with the desired value.
In test CGB1500-6, the strain starts localising in the
bottom left corner of the specimen, and, during softening, a
localisation band develops from this weaker region, as
shown in Fig. 9. This band is inclined at about 48 to the
horizontal, is dilative, and has a thickness of about 10–15
grains, i.e. it is more inclined than in the test with the
higher cement content, in agreement with the existing lit-
erature. Within this band, the damage is slightly less
developed than in the corners. At the end of the test,
damage localises in the two opposite corners and two
concurrent parallel bands, occurring at different depths of
the specimen (in the direction perpendicular to the vertical
slices). The analysis of the porosity field in Fig. 9a shows
that the porosity is only marginally altered in these bands.
The incremental strain field in Fig. 9b shows that during
the last step the strain only concentrates in the lower band.
The individual damage profiles for the two tests in
Fig. 10a reveal similar distributions for both the initial and
final steps. The most notable difference is the presence of
more partially damaged cement bridges and fewer fully
damaged ones in the specimen with higher cementation.
The cement size distributions in Fig. 10b confirm the
lower degree of initial cement content for test CGB1500-6
and indicate that the distribution of the effective cemen-
tation at the end of the tests is comparable in the two cases.
This hints to the possibility of an equilibrium state for the
cement, possibly determined by the size of the cemented
clusters that survive throughout the test. However, the
analysis of further tests conducted for lower degrees of
cementation, as well as over larger strains, is necessary to
validate this hypothesis.
2.2.2 Effect of confining pressure
To study the effect of the effective pressure, two further
specimens with the same cement content of 8% were tri-
axially sheared under 1000 kPa and 500 kPa confinements.
Their stress–strain responses are shown in Fig. 11, along
with the response of the reference test CGB1500-8 at
1500 kPa confinement. While the response obtained at
1000 kPa confinement is qualitatively similar to the
response of the reference test, with a clear stress peak
followed by progressive softening, the test at 500 kPa
confinement shows a somewhat unexpected response: a
much less marked softening followed by a longer stress
plateau.
Since this response was observed for the other specimen
tested at 500 kPa, this specimen has been studied, rather
than the one confined under 1000 kPa, in the attempt of
explaining this unexpected yet consistent behaviour using
Acta Geotechnica (2023) 18:57–75 65

Fig. 9 3D renderings at the end of the test CGB1500-6: a final porosity, b incremental maximum shear strain in the last step and c final statistical
damage. The colour maps used are the same as in the respective plots, but the regions with lower values have been made transparent to highlight
the crucial features

15
CGB1500-8 initial
CGB1500-6 initial
CGB1500-8 final
Contacts [%]

10 CGB1500-6 final

0
0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
individual damage DI
(a) (b)
Fig. 10 Comparison of the damage between tests with different cement contents: a distribution of the individual damage and (b) the effective
cement size distribution

the developed tools and to maximize the difference to the

Fig. 11 Stress–strain curves for all tests with 8% cement content:
CGB1500-8, CGB1000-8 and CGB500-8, sheared under 1500 kPa,
1000 kPa and 500 kPa confinement, respectively. The numbers in
green represent the individual scanning stages during test CGB500-8
reference case analysed above.
It can be observed from Fig. 11 that the initial stiffness
in test CGB500-8 is comparable to the one obtained in the
other two tests, although at about 100-kPa deviator stress
the stiffness reduces to about half its initial value. At 3%
axial strain, the stress deviator reaches a maximum of
approximately 200 kPa and then gently decreases.
The analysis of damage maps, not reported here for
brevity, indicates the nucleation of damage in the top left
corner of the specimen already in the pre-peak stages,
which then develops in a localisation band, which is fully
revealed in the softening regime. This band is about 10
grains thick and inclined 45 , in correspondence with the
region of the specimen where maximum shear strain and
dilation concentrate.
The analysis of the initial state of the sample reveals that
both porosity and cementation are homogeneously dis-
tributed and comparable in value to those of the test run at
1500 kPa. It is nonetheless possible to observe that the

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longitudinal axis of the cylinder is inclined by about 4 .
This was caused by the lack of ideal perpendicularity
between the bases and the sides of the cylinder, which
induced misalignment when confinement was applied. This
perpendicularity is cumbersome to achieve when building a
sample for two reasons: its size (11 mm diameter by
22 mm height) and the weakness of the material. The
techniques typically adopted for sands, such as pluviation,
are inapplicable and those often used to perfect the shape of
rock specimens failed due to the more brittle nature of the
material.
While the boundary conditions of this test deviate from
the ideal ones of a triaxial test, the micro-mechanisms
involved and their inter-relations, aim of this study, should
be only marginally affected. Additionally, it is possible to
directly include the exact testing geometry in the finite
element implementation of the model as will be explored in
Sect. 2.1.4. Incidentally, this reveals another advantage of
in situ testing: the possibility to simulate the exact testing
conditions of the experiments. For the above reasons, this
sub-perfect tests was chosen over the one performed at
1000 kPa.
At the end of the test, porosity, incremental maximum
shear strain and damage focus within a clear localisation
band, as confirmed by their 3D renderings in Fig. 12.
Figure 13a reports the individual damage for the first
and last steps of the tests run under 1500 kPa and 500 kPa
confinement. The damage in the initial step of the latter test
is, as expected, larger than that of the former, and also
more homogeneous, with only two peaks at zero and unit
damage. At the end of test CGB500-8, the specimen pre-
sents more fully damaged cement bridges, although fewer
partially damaged ones.
Fig. 12 3D renderings at the end of the test CGB500-8: a final porosity, b incremental maximum shear strain in the last step and c final statistical
damage. The colour maps used are the same as in their respective plots, but the regions with lower values have been made transparent to highlight
crucial features
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Acta Geotechnica (2023) 18:57–75
Figure 13b shows the initial and final probability density
functions of the cement sizes for both tests. The initial
distributions are very close to each other, as expected given
the identical amount of cement used in the preparation of
the specimens. It should be noted that the final distributions
are also close to each other and that neither of these
specimens appears to be fully ‘‘decemented’’ at the end of
the test, confirming the observation hinting at the existence
of a stable final distribution of cementation.
3 Double-scale validation of a micro-
mechanics-based constitutive model
Part I [34] focused on the capabilities of the image pro-
cessing tools developed, while the first half of the current
Part II has explored the interplay of key phenomena and the
effect of cementation and confinement upon them. This
section focuses instead on the two-way relationship
between this information and the constitutive model pro-
posed in [35].
Section 3.1 briefly summarises the model adopted,
while Sect. 3.2 compares experimental results and model
predictions at the constitutive level. The model predictions
at the scale of the specimen and the localisation analysis
for a representative test (CGB1500-8) are then presented in
Sect. 3.3. Section 3.4 explores the effect of two sources of
deviation from ideal conditions observed in these tests: the
lack of flatness at the two ends of the specimen
(Sect. 3.4.2) and the initial spatial inhomogeneity of the
cement (Sect. 3.4.1).
Acta Geotechnica (2023) 18:57–75
15
CGB1500-8 initial
CGB500-8 initial
CGB1500-8 final
Contacts [%]
10 CGB500-8 final
0
0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8
individual damage DI
(a)
Fig. 13 Comparison of damage in tests under different confinements: a distribution of the individual damage and (b) effective cement size
distribution
3.1 The model in a nutshell
A new hierarchy of micro-inspired constitutive models has
recently been proposed, which takes advantage of the novel
grain-scale experimental and numerical information and
injects this information directly in the constitutive
description of the grain-scale physics (e.g.
[2, 6, 7, 13, 14, 37]). This approach allows for transitioning
from the several stochastic processes at the microscale to
the deterministic assessment of the macroscopic response
of a statistically homogeneous continuum [25].
We consider in the following a model belonging to this
category [35], which focuses on the mechanical behaviour
of cemented granular materials. This model pays particular
attention to the definition of its internal variables, with the
philosophy that they should ideally be identifiable, mea-
surable and related to the dominant modes of irreversible
rearrangements of the material microstructure. A
notable example is that of cement damage whose definition
was adopted in Part I [34] to extract the statistically
homogenised damage of an REV.
Beyond the possibility of having observable descriptors
of the microscale texture, the use of physically meaningful
internal variables allows a rational connection between
them, the evolution of the elastically stored energy and the
energy dissipation. This approach has already proven suc-
cessful in predicting the macroscopic response of CGMs
while reducing the number of parameters with respect to
reference models for CGMs and assigning to each of them
a clear physical interpretation [9].
While a detailed description of the model goes beyond
the scope of this paper, a brief outline of the governing
equations as well as the detailed calibration procedure of
the model parameters can be found in ‘‘Appendix’’.
67
1.0
(b)
3.2 Model predictions at the constitutive level
A first comparison between model predictions and exper-
imental results can be made at the material point level, i.e.
comparing directly the constitutive response to the global
stress–strain response as measured from the test. This is
equivalent to the case of homogeneous deformation.
Figure 14 shows the model predictions at the constitu-
tive level (with the parameters determined through the
calibration detailed in Appendix). The elastic stiffness, the
peak and the residual stresses are well captured by the
model. The most notable difference is that the model pre-
dicts an abrupt change of behaviour at the passage between
elastic to damage-breakage-plastic domains, as opposed to
the smooth transition observed in the experiments.
It is noted that the tests under 500 kPa confinement
(CGB500-8 and CGB500-6) are not reported in Fig. 14
because their boundary conditions were deemed too dif-
ferent from the ideal ones for a meaningful direct com-
parison with the model predictions.
The bi-modality of the stress–strain curves is a common
feature in elasto-plastic models; for such models, it occurs
during the onset of yield. The use of yield surfaces is
widespread in constitutive modelling and allows for simple
mathematical formulations, although experimental evi-
dence (e.g. the analysis using acoustic emissions in
[30, 41]) shows that the passage from reversible to irre-
versible behaviours is a progressive transition rather than
an abrupt one. On the one hand, the material properties are
not homogeneously distributed within the specimen, and
therefore, different zones will start developing dissipative
mechanisms before others, causing a progressive transition
at the specimen scale. On the other hand, it is unrealistic to
assume that an infinitesimal increment in stress will sud-
denly initiate the full dissipation in a given material point,
which is likely going to progressively transition from
reversible to irreversible phenomena to accommodate the
imposed strain. These two intertwined phenomena can be
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68 Acta Geotechnica (2023) 18:57–75

6000
Experimental data CGB1500-8
Experimental data CGB1000-8
Model prediction CGB1500-8
Model prediction CGB1000-8
5000
6000
Experimental data CGB1500-6
Experimental data CGB1000-6
Model prediction CGB1500-6
Model prediction CGB1000-8
5000

4000 4000
q [kPa]

q [kPa]
3000 3000

2000 2000

1000 1000

0 0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
εa [%] εa [%]
(a) (b)
Fig. 14 The deviator stress q versus axial strain ea responses, using the model and the experiments for cement contents of a 8% and b 6% in mass

remedied using at least two viable approaches: (1)
assuming an non-homogeneous spatial distribution of
mechanical properties and (2) adopting the so-called h2
plasticity formulation [16]. The former is a numerical
approach, in which to every element of a finite element
model a different value for one or more of the model
parameters is assigned, as exemplified in Sect. 3.4.1. The
latter is an analytical approach, where hypo-plastic and
elasto-plastic theories are unified, which allows getting a
progressive development of the dissipative mechanisms
through a single parameter (see Fig. 17 in [37], for
example. More generally, it should be stressed that the
novelty of the model adopted in this study is certainly not
its (in)ability to fit smooth stress–strain data, but rather its
ability to couple macroscopic stress–strain to microscopic
evolutions of cement damage and grain crushing. As such,
the prediction in Fig. 14 should not be decoupled from the
novel predictions of statistical and microscopic damage,
which will be later shown in Figs. 15b and 16. Given the
novelty of such coupled predictions, we left these (im-
portant) further improvements of the model in predicting a
smooth transition from elastic to inelastic responses for
future research. This could now be done by adopting the
development in [2] where the yield surface is taken as a
bounding surface, while the plasticity multiplier is taken
within a McCauley bracket operator.
It is important to note that the volumetric strains have
not been validated in this work, as the experiments show a
dilatant behaviour, which cannot be captured by our con-
stitutive model (albeit part of it could be recovered at the
specimen scale by the elastic unloading outside the local-
isation zone). Dilation is largely controlled by the granular
skeleton, and the formulation used to describe the contri-
bution of the granular phase cannot itself predict dilation
[28]. The developments in [36] were therefore initiated to

(a) (b)

Fig. 15 Comparison of the model predictions at the constitutive and specimen scales: a stress–strain responses and b total damage as a function
of axial strain

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Acta Geotechnica (2023) 18:57–75
(a)
(b)
Fig. 16 Damage distribution: a statistical damage distribution predicted by the model and b experimentally measured statistical damage for test
CGB1500-8 (as shown in Part I). The cross-position of the cross section in the images was selected to best highlight the localisation pattern
incorporate the micro-mechanical origins of dilation in the
formulation of crushable granular materials (and later add
the contribution of cement). An extended model for CGMs
accounting for the developments in [36] is currently under
development.
In the following, the attention will be focused on an
illustrative test (CGB1500-8), to highlight different aspects
of the methodological framework. It is noted that compa-
rable results can be obtained with the other tests presented
here.
Damage prediction
The aim of the presented experimental campaign was to
establish a measure of damage coherent with the proposed
model. Figure 15b shows the comparison between the
damage predicted by the model at the constitutive level and
the statistical damage for the whole specimen, obtained as
detailed in Sect. 2.1. An important difference is once again
in the graduality of the responses: the model predicts an
abrupt development of the damage, whereas the experi-
ments reveal a more progressive behaviour. The arguments
proposed for the bi-modality of stress–strain response
above are valid also for the damage.
Additionally, the difference between the total damage
predicted and the experimentally observed one is not
negligible. This can be partly ascribed to the conceptual
difference between the two measures in the figure: the
model considers the whole specimen as a material point
and neglects the observed localisation, while the experi-
mental response represents the behaviour of the material in
the whole sample, both inside and outside the localised
areas. A more appropriate validation is therefore proposed
69
in the next section, where finite element analysis of the
whole specimen is performed and validated against the
experimental results.
It is noted that the model predicts negligible grain
crushing (  10%), well in agreement with the experi-
mentally observed behaviour.
3.3 Model predictions at the specimen scale
and localisation analysis
To validate the model predictions at the specimen scale, the
constitutive model was implemented within the commer-
cial code ABAQUS, following the procedure detailed in
[9], and only varying the constitutive parameters. In brief,
the model is implemented as a UMAT subroutine, and a
boundary value problem (BVP) corresponding to an ideal
drained triaxial compression test is solved. A rate-depen-
dent Perzjina regularisation [29] allows remedying for the
ill-posedness of this BVPs in the presence of localisation.
The viscous parameter adopted is the same as in [9], and
the same number and type of elements are used in the
specimen. A weak element, with a cohesion 0.1% lower
than the rest of the sample, is used to trigger localisation.
For consistency with the work presented in [9], this ele-
ment is placed in the centre of the specimen.
Figure 15a compares the stress–strain responses pre-
dicted at the constitutive and specimen levels. The pre-
peak behaviour is, as expected, identical in the two cases.
The post-peak response is only slightly affected by the
emergence of strain localisation, as the specimen softens
more rapidly and reaches the plateau sooner than observed
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70
in the single element. However, the prediction of the
overall damage is significantly improved, as shown in
Fig. 15b; this highlights how the acknowledgement of the
specimen scale allows to partially explain the discrepancy
in the measured damage.
The origin of this improved validation is revealed in
Fig. 16a, which highlights how the occurrence of locali-
sation leaves a large portion of the specimen undamaged.
In Fig. 16, the experimentally measured distribution of
damage is also shown; remarkably, the observed damage
within the localisation zone as well as its width and incli-
nation are comparable to the predicted ones.
A notable difference is that in the numerical simulations,
damage starts localising from the weak element placed in
the centre of the specimen and diffuses until it also affects
the edges, whereas in the experiments it is observed to
concentrate in opposite corners. The origins of this beha-
viour will be explored in the next section. It can be
observed how in steps 01–02 and 02–03 the experimentally
measured damage is homogeneous, whereas the model
already predicts localisation. It should be noted that these
damage maps are reported for the same level of macro-
scopic strain, but, as can be observed from Fig. 14a, the
numerical sample is already in the softening regime,
whereas the experimental response is still in the hardening
regime. A more appropriate comparison could therefore be
performed between analogous regimes, but the definition of
a comparable ‘‘state’’ goes beyond the purpose of this
paper.
3.4 Model predictions with realistic
experimental conditions
The reduced size of the specimens increases the difficulty
of performing experiments with boundary conditions close
to the ideal ones. The experimental setup adopted allows
nonetheless the imaging and thus the measurement of the
actual boundary conditions as well as the characteristics of
the sample. This approach enables therefore a more real-
istic comparison between model predictions and experi-
mental results.
Two possible deviations from ideal conditions are
explored in this section: the non-uniform distribution of
cement (Sect. 3.4.1) and the lack of flatness/parallelism of
the ends of the specimen (Sect. 3.4.2).
3.4.1 Cement distribution
The ability to measure the spatial distribution of cement in
the sample and the fact that the model uses cement content
as an explicit variable enables the study of the effects of
material heterogeneities on the bi-modality of the stress–
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Acta Geotechnica (2023) 18:57–75
strain response as well as the impact of weaker zones on
the initiation of strain localisation.
The image analysis tools developed in Part I [34] pro-
vide a map of the spatial distribution of the phases as that
in Fig. 17a, where white represents the grains, orange the
cement and black the voids. It is then possible to evaluate
the cement and grain solid fractions uc and ug for each of
the elements of the numerical model and use them as an
input for the constitutive equations, which are solved for
each of the eight integration points of the elements as
shown in Fig. 17b.
For continuity with the previous sections, a mesh com-
prising the same number of elements (1920) was used. This
corresponds to an average cube size of 80 pixels2, to be
compared to the 40 pixels chosen in Sect. 2.1 to define a
stable measure of the volume fraction of the phases. Pre-
liminary analyses show that the size of the element has a
modest effect on the results shown in this section, although
further analyses are necessary to fully investigate the effect
of the mesh dependence of this approach.
The stress–strain curve in Fig. 18 reveals a negligible
effect of this distribution on the macroscopic response.
This is to be expected considering that uc and ug mainly
affect the yield surface at high confinements, as shown in
[35]. With changes to the cement content the cohesion c is
also expected to vary, although these two parameters have
been intentionally left distinguished in the adopted model.
Several works have investigated the effect of the cement
content on the cohesion, and in most cases, the experi-
mental observations suggest a linear relationship between
cement content and cohesion (e.g. [1, 31]).
The approach used above is therefore extended to assign
to each element of the numerical model a value of cohesion
c, assumed to scale linearly with the cement content. To
deduce the element-wise cohesion, it is here made the
assumption that when uc ¼ 0, also c ¼ 0, and that to the
average cement content (0.085) corresponds the average
cohesion adopted (850 kPa).
The stress–strain response of the sample with a realistic
distribution of both cohesion and cement fraction is
reported in Fig. 18. The most notable difference with the
homogeneous response is the increased ‘‘smoothness’’ of
the response which got (perhaps infinitesimally) closer to
the experimentally observed one, even though the distri-
bution of the cohesion cannot, in itself, explain the dis-
crepancy between the two responses. The other mechanical
model parameters may also have to vary spatially and it
might be necessary to acknowledge their statistical distri-
bution to further improve models predictions. However,
2
The height of the sample is 22 mm, which, given a pixel size of
13.5 lm, corresponds to about 1630 pixels. The mesh has 20 rows of
nodes along the vertical axis, i.e. an average size of 80 pixels/node.
Acta Geotechnica (2023) 18:57–75
(a)
Fig. 17 Schematics of the approach used to reproduce the experimental spatial distribution of cementation of the sample in the numerical model:
a for each element of the numerical model, the degree of cementation of the corresponding volume of the trinarised image is evaluated. This
allows the construction b of a FE model using the experimentally measured local values of cementation (and cohesion) measured from the
experiments
Fig. 18 Stress–strain responses of numerical specimens simulating
realistic cement size distributions in terms of only cement fraction uc
and of both cement fraction and cohesion c
unlike cement content, their distribution cannot be cur-
rently measured from the images (e.g. grain and cement
stiffness). Furthermore, the simulation of the distribution of
multiple model parameters can induce convergence issues
of the numerical model, as each element behaves differ-
ently from its neighbours.
An alternative approach would be to follow the work of
[16], to improve model predictions at the constitutive scale,
and this would not incur the above numerical issues. The
performance of this approach was demonstrated for a
model similar to this one (but dedicated to uncemented
granular materials) in [36], and the application to this
specific model will be further explored in the future.
Figure 19 reports the spatial distribution of damage for
the numerical specimen simulating the distribution of only
the cement fraction, to remove the dependency on the
hypothesis made on the cohesion. It can be observed that
the damage nucleates from weaker regions and concen-
trates in two opposite corners, to then develop in a band
crossing the sample. A comparable evolution of damage is
71
(b)
obtained with the account of distributions of both cohesion
and cement contents. The study of the spatial distribution
of cementation can help predicting localisation patterns,
although, to assess its relevance, a combined study of the
effect of sample geometry and spatial distribution of
mechanical properties would be necessary.
3.4.2 Parallelism of the specimen ends
Studying the 3D volumes of CGB1500-8, it can be
observed that the bottom base is not perfectly horizontal,
with a maximum inclination of about 1:3 . Numerical
simulations were therefore performed adopting this
geometry for a more realistic comparison, albeit the data
are not reported here for simplicity (but can be found in
[33]). Analogously to what was observed for the spatial
distribution of cement content, it can be shown that the
inclination of the base has only a minimal effect on the
macroscopic stress–strain response. The peak stress is only
marginally reduced, because of the earlier failure initiated
at the opposite corners of the sample. A similar localisation
pattern was observed in both tests performed at 1500 kPa
confinement.
Both the geometry of the sample and the cement dis-
tribution analysed the previous section induce the locali-
sation to start from the same corners of the sample. Further
tests reveal the former to be the dominant effect in this
specific case (for example when both are simultaneously
simulated at different relative angles, the localisation fol-
lows the orientation of the inclination of the base).
It can be observed that in all the experiments presented
in this paper, the localisation bands develop close to the
corners of the specimen. The inception of localisation can
be caused by even minimal heterogeneities in the specimen
as well as by the test conditions, as shown above. Per-
forming tests as those shown here can be technically
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72
(a)
(b)
Fig. 19 The distribution of damage predicted by the model across a specimen with a realistic distribution of the cement fraction uc (a). The zoom
in (b) helps highlighting situations before, while and after the peak stress is reached. Comparable results are obtained by adding the
corresponding distribution of cohesion
challenging given the size of the specimens, which
increases the likelihood of imperfections in both geometry
and uniformity. The in situ testing allows nonetheless for
measuring these test conditions by simulating their effect
thanks to numerical tools, in order to have a realistic
comparison between model predictions and experimental
results.
4 Conclusions
This paper portrays a coherent picture of key grain-scale
processes of a cemented granular material subjected to
deviatoric loading (triaxial compression), taking advantage
of the array of image processing tools presented in Part I
[34].
All the specimens start from a homogeneous and iso-
tropic state. The linear part of the observed macroscopic
response coincides with homogeneous deformation and
modest, diffuse damage. As the strain in the specimen
starts localising, the stress–strain response loses its linear-
ity. At peak stress, a relatively broad region of material
undergoes shear strain, dilation and damage. As the
material softens and approaches critical state, strain/dam-
age localisation narrows to a 10 grains-thick region,
inclined about 45 .
Within this band, extensive damage and dilation occur,
accompanied by a negligible loss of the isotropy of the
cemented contacts (as detailed in Part I [34]). The study of
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Acta Geotechnica (2023) 18:57–75
the effective cement size distribution reveals that not all the
cement bonds are broken at the end of these tests. Rather,
they achieve a similar final distribution, which hints to the
possibility of a stable ultimate distribution, analogously to
what can be observed for the ultimate grain size distribu-
tion in non-cemented granular materials undergoing
crushing. A possible explanation is that clusters of
cemented grains survive throughout the test and act as
‘‘macro-grains’’. Future studies on samples undergoing
larger deformations will help to assess this hypothesis and,
potentially, to measure the sizes of these clusters.
The degree of cementation was found to increase the
peak stress with modest effect on the critical state (in
agreement with the literature), while being associated with
a narrower concentration of damage. The overall amount of
damage as well as the final effective cement size distri-
bution is comparable for the two levels of cementation. A
similar ultimate cement distribution was also observed for
the test performed at lower confinement, corroborating the
hypothesis of the existence of a unique final distribution.
A key advantage of the above observations is that they
descend from quantitative measurements rather than qual-
itative observations. Beside the intrinsic interest in their
comparison, this is an essential step to validate micro-
mechanically inspired constitutive at multiple scales.
Specifically, in this work, the comparison is made at three
scales: the constitutive scale (i.e. the comparison between
the constitutive model response and the response of the
sample as a whole), the ‘‘localisation scale’’ (i.e. in terms
Acta Geotechnica (2023) 18:57–75 73

of localisation patterns) and the local scale (the scale of their relations with the macroscopic scale, but it is only
processes such as damage, here compared between statis- thanks to the numerical work that it is possible to com-
tically homogenised volumes of the sample and the pensate for the limits of the experimental approach adopted
equivalent volume of the finite element simulations). and explore the stresses at play locally. As usual, more
At the macro-scale, the model proposed in [35] can work is required to perfect the performance of each of these
capture crucial aspects of the experimental stress–strain components, but the panoply of possibilities opened by the
response, including peak and residual stresses. The most methodological framework is hopefully clear.
notable difference is in the extent of graduality of the
response, which originates from the single yield surface
model adopted. One approach proposed as a partially Appendix: A micro-mechanics inspired
remedy is to to inject the experimentally measured spatial constitutive model for cemented granular
distribution of cement content in each element of the materials
numerical model. This only marginally reduces the
abruptness of the model response, but comes at an Key equations and fundamental hypotheses. The model
increased computational cost due to convergence issues. used relies on the equations in Table 2:
An alternative approach is to follow the developments Model calibration
proposed in [16], thus improving the model prediction at The cement and grains volume fractions were measured
the constitutive scale. from the images reported above and were found to be 7%
At the sample scale, the model correctly predicts the and 5% of the total volume for the two different levels of
main features of the localisation band. The main discrep- cementation (corresponding to 8% and 6% in mass,
ancy lies in the fact that, in the experiments, damage ini- respectively). Assuming a porosity of 20%, the cement
tiates at the edges of the specimen, whereas in the FE volume fractions of the solid component uc are equal to
model it starts, as expected, from the weak element. The 8.5% and 6%, respectively.
initiation of localisation can be caused by the boundary The grading index h can be measured using the initial
conditions as well as by weaker regions in the specimen, grain size distribution from image analysis. For a fractal
both of which were measured thanks to the tools presented ultimate grain size distribution with a fractal dimension
in this work and used as an input for the numerical studies. a ¼ 2:7 (as adopted by [14]), the resulting value for h is
These provide more realistic simulations and allow the 0.9.
prediction of the onset of localisation from the corners of The ratio between the cement and grain stiffness, sr, is
the sample. here deduced from the ratio of the Young’s moduli of glass
Finally, at the local scale, the statistically homogenised
damage is coherent between experiments and simulations
Table 2 The nine constitutive equations of the adopted mode,
throughout the sample. For example, both predict nearly requiring the eight mechanical parameters and two geometrical
80% of damage within the band at the end of the test. This indexes detailed below
local-scale validation of the model is rather unique to the Type Equation
proposed methodological framework.
Beside the observations deriving from the individual Stresses p ¼ pr ð1  #BÞA2g ug þ pr ð1  DÞA2c uc
experiments, the development of image processing meth- q ¼ 3ð1  #BÞGg ees ug þ 3ð1  DGc ees uc Þ
 3 
ods, and constitutive observations presented herein, in fact, Breakage energy 2pr A
EB ¼ # 3Kgg þ 32 Gg ðees Þ2 ug
the overarching aim of this two-part contribution is the  3 
Damage energy 2p A
ED ¼ 3Krc c þ 32 Gc ðees Þ2 uc
proposition of a methodological framework for cemented
granular materials combining them all. In other terms, the  2
Yield criteria 2 2
y ¼ ð1BÞ EB
þ ð1DÞ ED q
þ Mpþcð1DÞ 1  0
focus and main contribution of this work is the combina- EBC EDC

tion of advanced experiments and modelling, at multiple Flow rules _  BÞ2 cos2 xB =EBC
B_ ¼ 2kð1
scales, which, to the best of our knowledge, is rarely pro- _  DÞ2 =EDC
D_ ¼ 2kð1
posed in the literature. The benefits of the micro-to-macro _  BÞ2 EB sin2 xB =ðpEBC Þ
e_pv ¼ 2kð1
upscaling approach to modelling in itself have already been _ ðMp þ cð1  DÞÞ2
e_p ¼ 2kq
s
highlighted in previous works (e.g. [13, 35]), but it is only
with Ag ¼ Kg eev =2 þ 1
thanks to the experimental work in these papers that it is
possible to validate the predicted evolution of the and Ac ¼ Kc eev =2 þ 1
microstructure and to test some of the hypotheses adopted. and Kc =Kg ¼ Gc =Gg ¼ sr
Similarly, the grain-scale focus of the experimental study
allows the investigation of key grain-scale phenomena and

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Table 3 The eight constitutive mechanical parameters and two geometrical indexes for the tested cemented glass beads
Mechanical parameters
K G [kPa] sr M c [kPa]
8% cem. 8000 105000 0.2 1.23 850
6% cem. 8000 105000 0.2 1.23 650
Note that the blue colour is used to highlight the only two parameters changing between the two tests
(ranging from 50 to 90 GPa, [17]) and calcite (measured to
be  14 GPa in a preliminary test on a compact cube of
calcite, in agreement with typical values for mortars). An
average Young’s Modulus of 70 GPa was hereby selected
for the glass, yielding a value of 0.2 for sr. The bulk
modulus of the material can be derived from an isotropic
compression test. In tests run in dry conditions (such as
those presented herein), the volumetric strain cannot be
evaluated directly from the interstitial fluid expelled, as it is
often done in experimental geomechanics. The volumetric
strain can nonetheless be computed by comparing the
volumes before and after imposing the confinement. The
so-measured volumetric strain is close to the resolution of
the method, symptomatic of high bulk stiffness, as expec-
ted considering the high stiffness of the glass. The value
chosen for K is 8000 (it is recalled that K is dimensionless),
and its effect on the results presented in this paper can be
shown to be negligible, to a first approximation.
The shear modulus G can be deduced from the tangent
stiffness at the beginning of the triaxial compression curves
and was found to be 105 MPa.
An average residual (at-the-end-of-the-test) friction
angle of 30:75 can be observed in the experiments, which
is equivalent to a friction coefficient M = 1.23.
The coupling angle xB can be determined from the
inelastic portion of an isotropic compression test or,
alternatively, from the relation xB ¼ a/, justified in [14],
where a ranges from 1.6 to 3.4. A value of xB = 45 , is
hereby selected, although it is noted that, in the absence of
substantial breakage, the effect of this parameter on the
results is modest.
The cohesion c can be deduced from the peak stress of
any of these tests, given the knowledge of the friction
coefficient. The tests under 1500 kPa confinement were in
this case used, and values of cohesion of 850 kPa and
650 kPa were deduced for tests with 8% and 6% cement
contents, respectively.
The critical breakage energy EBC can be deduced from
the critical pressure pcr (the pressure at which the strain
becomes irreversible in isotropic compression) of the
uncemented granular material, using the expression in [15]:
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
pcr ¼ 2KE  C =h. A second isotropic test on the cemented
123
Acta Geotechnica (2023) 18:57–75
Geometrical indexes
EDC [kPa] EBC [kPa] xB [ h uc

]
135 1350 45 0.9 0.085
135 1350 45 0.9 0.06
material helps to find the critical pressure of the compound
and, by difference, to deduce the critical energy of the
cement. The model in Sect. 3.1 assumes a coupled dissi-
pation between the phenomena, resulting in a single yield
surface for both grain crushing and cement damage. An
alternative approach was explored in [14], which involved
formulating uncoupled individual dissipations for breakage
and plastic strain, and this would result in two different
yield surfaces. Given the disparate strengths of grains and
cement in this material, it is possible to imagine that the
two phases will start degrading at different pressures, and
therefore, that two independent critical pressures can be
found for cement and grains. A series of isotropic loading–
unloading tests were performed on the cemented material
to find the pressure at which a new sample, after unloading,
loses its cohesion. This critical pressure was found to be
4500 kPa, which (assuming uc ¼ 1) allows deducing a
critical damage energy EDC =135 kPa .
The compressive strength of glass beads is factory
defined to be  250 MPa3 The compressive strength of a
small calcite cube was tested in this work and was found to
be around 20 MPa (in line with typical strengths of similar
mortars reported in [19]). Their ratio is around 10, which is
here assumed to be respected also in terms of critical
energies, yielding a value of 1350 MPa for EBC . This
means that it takes much more energy to crush grains than
to degrade cement bonds, in agreement with the aim the
model material.
Table summarises the values used for the model in this
study for the two different levels of cementation.
Acknowledgements We wish to thank Edward Andò for the insightful
discussions. We wish to acknowledge the Australian Research
Council through grants DP160104310 and DP190103487. Laboratoire
3SR is part of the LabEx Tec 21 (Investissements dAvenir—Grant
agreement n ANR-11-ABX-0030).
3
As can be seen from http://www.pottersbeads.com/egm/North
America/Products/SolidGlassMicrospheres/BALLOTI.NIImpact
beads/GlassBeadFacts.aspx.
Acta Geotechnica (2023) 18:57–75 75

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